From shining sea to shining sea
Lies this land of opportunity
A place so bright and gilded gold
To keep reality from being so bold

Under Lady Liberty’s solemn stare
Horrors unfold but she’s unaware
She’s blind to dirty faces
She’s deaf to their screams
She’s too busy symbolizing
Someone else’s dreams

She doesn’t hear the crying
Of ‘Mommy!’ in the night
She doesn’t see the cardboard homes
Devoid of any light

The streets paved in gold
With the glory that they cook
Shine in the eyes
Of tourists who overlook
The child with her child
The man with the skull tattoo
Teens with bottles and needles
And maybe even you

Home sweet home!
So people always say
Yet they never look
Down the dark alleyway
And what will they find?
Girls scantily clad
Girls who never knew a Dad

And men who never knew success
Lonely, tired and depressed
Money in their hands
Perversity in their minds
No one ever taught them
To be respectful and kind

To ride on the amber waves of grain
You must be chosen out of the bunch
And while you prance through the fruited plain
Millions of people go without lunch

O, America, America!
One with nature’s simplicity!
O, America, America!
How we begin is how we shall be!

O, America, America!
Home of the free and the brave!
O, America, America!
We come to you to be saved!

Give me your poor, your huddled masses
Yearning to be free!
For poor and huddled masses
Forever you will be!