Don McLean Follow

There is no time to discuss or debate

what is right, what is wrong for our people.

Time has run out for all those who wait

with bent limbs and minds that are feeble.

And the rain falls and blows through their window

and the snow falls and blows through their door.

And the seasons revolve mid their sounds of starvation.

When the tides rise, they cover the floor.

They come from the north and they come from the south

and they come from the hills and the valleys.

And they're migrants and farmers and miners and humans,

our census neglected to tally.

And the rain falls and blows through their window

and the rain falls and it blows through their door.

And the seasons revolve mid their sounds of starvation.

When the tides rise, they cover the floor.

And they´re African, Mexican, Caucasian, Indian,

hungry and hopeless Americans.

The orphans of wealth and of adequate health,

disowned by this nation they live in.

And with weather worn hands on bread lines they stand,

yet but one more degradation.

And they're treated like tramps while we sell them food stamps

this thriving and prosperous nation.

And the rain falls and blows through their window

and the snow falls and blows through their door.

And the seasons revolve mid their sounds of starvation.

When the tides rise, they cover the floor.

And with roaches and rickets and rats in the thickets,

infested, diseased and decaying.

With rags and no shoes and skin sores that ooze,

by the poisonous pools, they are playing.

In shacks of two rooms that are rotting wood tombs

with corpses breathing inside them.

And we pity their plight as they call in the night

and we do all that we can do to hide them.

And the rain falls and blows through their window

and the snow falls in white drifts that fold

and the tides rise with floods in the nursery.

And a child is crying, he's hungry and cold,

his life has been sold, his young face looks old.

It's the face of America, dying.