Born Outside Lyrics

Put the finishing touches on

A watershed year

In transformation pain

Mark where you stand

Outside the picture now

By enclosing it in this frame

O little child

You will never know a world

That lets you forget

What you've been

When I was a boy

I honestly thought

I would be relieved to find out

How the story ends

O little child

You will never know the world

That let you forget

What you'd been

I really thought I would be

relieved to find out

Where I fit in

For most of my life

I've done nothing but burn through

The inheritance every day

Never imagining never imaging

I would live to see a demagogue

Finally get the keys to the United States

Even though we had this coming

My old man's own notion of living free

Wore down his resistance

If you were born here, son

Before long you were strung out

All strung out on the frontier distance