God Bless Ohio

There you were, a little kid in the yard
 I was a friend and a brother
 There's an old picture of us playing cards
 And at night we threw corn at houses
 It was meant for feeding hogs
 Later in life, I was playing Jimmy Fallon
 You were getting chased by police through cornfields
 And mauled by canine dogs
 And when I go back and visit
 It's like a ghost town
 We travel around, and around, and around
 Past the perpetually vacant Sexton's house
 (Sexton's house)
 Past the abandoned Molly Stark Hospital
 And I think about
 The old Mansfield prison where Shawshank Redemption was filmed
 And I think about
 The Alcoholic's Anonymous guys I knew in my teens who had been in and out
 Past the old steel mill
 I think about my grandpa
 And that horrible nursing home
 And the ugly tattoo on his sagging dying arm
 I said fuck that, Dad
 Whatever that is I'm never ever ever going to get one
 My Dad is one of two left of his nine siblings
 And when he's gone I'm gonna lay down in my bed and I'm never gonna wanna get out again
 (I'm never gonna get out again)
 I'm gonna be strong when I can
 Cause if my little brother goes before me
 Don't want to swim out into the sea and never come back
 ♪
 God bless Ohio
 God bless every man
 Woman and child
 God bless every bag of bones, six feet under the snow
 God bless O
 God bless O
 God bless Ohio
 Just saw the news on my television in New York
 Pike County, Ohio Massacre
 If it ain't families getting shot then it's one thing or the other
 Guy letting his pet lions loose in the street and putting a gun in his mouth
 Young girls held as slaves in a basement by a guy
 Until a neighbor ratted him out
 Craigslist killers luring people by offering them work on a farm
 Killed and buried their bodies out by Belden Village Mall
 Stole their cars and credit cards
 God bless Ohio
 God bless every man
 Woman and child
 God bless every bag of bones, six feet under the snow
 God bless O
 God bless O
 God bless Ohio
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 Oh, as sadness lingers
 And the rain clouds above
 Well, sadness lingers and the lightning storms
 Rain floods
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 Oh, as sadness lingers
 And the graffiti underneath the bridge
 Well, sadness lingers and the old dilapidated barns
 And the doors coming off their hinges
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 And in the empty downtown parking lots
 And the lonely alleyways
 And the foreclosed homes that once had kiddie pools in the yards
 And cars parked in the driveway
 ♪
 Oh, but the beautiful things from Ohio
 My mother, my mother, my mother, my mother
 And my walks along the path of the Tuscarawas Street
 (Of the Tuscarawas Street)
 The beautiful children of my sister
 And the blue herons gliding across the pond
 (Blue herons gliding across the pond)
 The black squirrels nibbling on acorns
 The fireflies flickering on the summer lawn
 (On the summer lawn)
 Domino's pizza brings me back to when I was younger
 When I was younger, when I was younger, when I was younger, when I was younger
 These kids I hear outside my window
 I was one of them, I was one of them, I was one of them, I was one of them
 Now I'm the old man in the chair
 Deep in thought in the living room
 I'm that old man now and I'm grateful that I got this far
 And that I've become him
 And when I go back, we drive around
 We drive around, we drive around, we drive around, we drive around
 (We drive around)
 The old supermarket we used to go hide behind
 Is closed down
 (Is closed down)
 I was raised on groceries my mom brought home from their spring, summer, fall, winter
 (Spring, summer, fall, winter)
 Velveeta cheese and Wonder Bread and chocolate milk, and Salisbury steak TV dinners
 (Salisbury steak TV dinners)
 She squirreled away a few bucks along the way because she loved you and me
 (She loved you and me)
 So she could make sure we had a few gifts each year under the Christmas tree
 (Under the Christmas tree)
 At the risk of pissing my dad off very, very, very badly
 She socked that money away from those grocery store trips without him knowing
 For you and me
 What saved me from the dark clouds hanging over Ohio?
 What's chasing the dream, baby?
 Who would have known
 That the pursuit of love and music would have even bought me a home
 Or'd have take me to Tokyo, to Tel Aviv, to Athens, to Reykjavík, and Rome
 ♪
 There is healing in writing poems
 There is healing in psychotherapy
 There is healing in taking walks along the beach
 But never underestimate the healing of music, baby
 ♪
 Some songs are funny and some are sad
 Some are short, some are long
 There is nothing as healing and powerful
 As the power of song
 ♪
 As the power of song
 As the power of song
 As the power of song
 As the power of song
 ♪
 I was walking along the Hudson looking at the New York skyline on my break from the studio in Hoboken
 Every pay phone I saw I checked to see which ones worked and which ones were broken
 And in my head there was a melody going
 Oh
 God bless O
 God bless O
 God bless Ohio
 God bless O
 God bless O
 God bless Ohio
 God bless O
 God bless O
 God bless Ohio
 God bless O
 God bless O
 God bless Ohio
 God bless O
 God bless O
 God bless Ohio
 God bless O
 God bless O
 God bless Ohio
 God bless O
 God bless O
 God bless Ohio
 God bless O
 God bless O
 God bless Ohio
 God bless O
 God bless O
 God bless Ohio
 God bless O
 God bless O
 God bless Ohio
 God bless O
 God bless O
 God bless Ohio
 God bless O
 God bless O
 God bless Ohio