in a land that time forgot,
Before the days of Dylan,
or the dawn of Camelot.
There lived a race of innocents,
and they were you and me,
For Ike was in the White House
in that land where we were born,
Where navels were for oranges,
and Peyton Place was porn.
We learned to gut a muffler,
we washed our hair at dawn,
We spread our crinolines
to dry in circles on the lawn.
and waited for our Prince,
And Eddie Fisher married Liz,
and no one's seen him since.
and sang to 'Stagger Lee'
And cried for Buddy Holly
in the Land That Made me Me.
and 3 was one too many,
And only boys wore flat-top cuts,
except for Jean McKinney.
And only in our wildest dreams
did we expect to see
A boy named George with Lipstick,
in the Land That Made me Me.
We fell for Frankie Avalon,
Annette was oh, so nice,
And when they made a movie,
they never made it twice.
or Psycho Two and Three,
Or Rocky-Rambo Twenty
in the Land That Made me Me.
and Chester had a limp,
And Reagan was a Democrat
whose co-star was a chimp.
We had a Mr.Wizard,
but not a Mr.T,
And Oprah couldn't talk yet,
in the Land That Made me Me.
We had our share of heroes,
we never thought they'd go,
At least not Bobby Darin,
or Marilyn Monroe.
and life was yet to be,
And Elvis was forever
in the Land That Made me Me.
that was Grateful to be Dead,
And Airplanes weren't named Jefferson,
and Zeppelins were not Led.
and Monkees lived in trees,
Madonna was Mary
in the Land That Made me Me.
We'd never heard of microwaves,
or telephones in cars,
And babies might be bottle-fed,
but they weren't grown in jars.
And pumping iron got wrinkles out,
and 'gay' meant fancy-free,
And dorms were never co-ed
in the Land That Made me Me.
to talk about the lag,
And microchips were what was left
at the bottom of the bag.
and bytes came from a flea,
And rocket ships were fiction
in the Land That Made me Me.
and side shows came with freaks,
And bathing suits came big enough
to cover both your cheeks.
and skirts below the knee,
And Castro came to power near
the Land That Made me Me.
we had not Hill Street Blues,
We had no patterned pantyhose
or Lipton herbal tea
Or prime-time ads for those dysfunctions
in the Land That Made me Me.
no Perrier to chill,
And fish were not called Wanda,
and cats were not called Bill.
and old was forty-three,
And ancient were our parents
in the Land that Made me Me.
or so we've heard them say,
And now instead of Maybelline
we swear by Retin-A.
They send us invitations
to join AARP,
We've come a long way, baby,
from the Land That Made me Me.
So now we face a brave new world
in slightly larger jeans,
And wonder why they're using
smaller print in magazines.
And we tell our children's children
of the way it used to be,
Long ago and far away
in the Land That Made me Me.
