Long
ago and far away, 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.
We longed for love and romance, and
waited for our Prince,
And Eddie Fisher married Liz, and no one's
seen him since.
We danced to 'Little Darlin,' and sang
to 'Stagger Lee'
And cried for Buddy Holly in the Land
That Made Me Me.
Only girls wore earrings then, 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.
We didn't have a Star Trek Five, or Psycho Two
and Three,
Or Rocky-Rambo Twenty in the Land That Made Me
Me.
Miss Kitty had a heart of gold, 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.
For youth was still eternal, and life was yet
to be,
And Elvis was forever in the Land That Made Me
Me.
We'd never seen the rock band that was
Grateful to be Dead,
And Airplanes weren't named Jefferson, and
Zeppelins were not Led.
And Beatles lived in gardens then, and
Monkees lived in trees,
Madonna was a virgin 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 coed in the Land
That Made Me Me.
We hadn't
seen enough of jets to talk about the
lag,
And microchips were what was left at the
bottom of the bag.
And Hardware was a box of nails, and bytes
came from a flea,
And rocket ships were fiction in the
Land That Made Me Me.
Buicks came with portholes, and side shows
came with freaks,
And bathing suits came big enough to
cover both your cheeks.
And Coke came just in bottles, and skirts
below the knee,
And Castro came to power near the Land That
Made Me Me.
We had no Crest with Fluoride, we had no
Hill Street Blues,
We had no patterned pantyhose or Lipton herbal
tea
Or prime-time ads for condoms in the
Land That Made Me Me.
There were no golden arches, no Perrier
to chill,
And fish were not called Wanda, and cats were
not called Bill.
And middle-aged was 35 and old was
forty-three,
And ancient were our parents in the Land That
Made Me Me.
But all things have a season, 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.