Come Back to America

You've been sitting in the cafes, wasting your youth

Now's the time to face the truth;

You've got no book that you're gonna write,

You don't have a vision to light up the night.

Just roamin' the town with the creatures of night,

How they flash like matchsticks in black and white;

Your mother is worried with the rumors she's heard,

She'll send the money just send the word.

Late nights crying at the top of the stairs,

Doing your research in foreign affairs;

You're young and your life turns on a dime,

Come back home baby there's still time.

   Come on back to America,

   You can stay with Mike and Erica

   You can split them up and sleep with Mike

   That's the kind of scene I know you like;

   So come back to America.

Tell your tales--no one will know,

Say you were the queen of the gigolos;

The pennies you left and the thoughts you saved,

Standing in the rain at Kafka's grave.

Watch them go pale, recoil and shrink,

When you talk about the needles in the sink;

Laugh it off like the last courtesan,

On the Christmas Eve streets of Amsterdam.

All the jets are fueled with broken hearts,

All trying to make a brand new start;

you can ride with princesses in disguise,

And the hard luck madonnas with their alibis.

   Come on back to America,

   You can stay with Mike and Erica;

   You can split them up and sleep with Mike,

   That's the kind of scene I know you like;

   So come back to America.

   Come back home to the land of the free,

   Spread your wings and come back home to me.

Well the war is over and the troops are home,

No lost generation needs to roam;

The urchins of art and the waifs of love

Can find right here what they're dreaming of.

You can buy your books, go back to school,

And pretend to be breaking all the rules;

You can lock yourself up in your little room

And wait for the flowers of romance to bloom.

All the young expatriates

Look for tomorrow on a broken plate,

Read their fortunes and cast their runes,

And watch the day slip away too soon.

   Come on back to America,

   You can stay with Mike and Erica;

   You can split them up and sleep with Mike,

   That's the kind of scene I know you like;

   So come back to America.