Edit Your Hometown - La Dispute

An outcry

To lost dreams and sense of wonder

To the streets that raised him.

Say

«Goodbye» to the hope for the home he’d been holding

Say, «Goodbye» and «Be gone» and «Be great.»

To the friends who left when they still could

For the ones who chose to stay to waste away unplaced

Alone, and pray

To get out

To grow old

To grow strong and

Leave this city, so familiar all it’s places

All these memories turn each day more to gray

More they space out till it’s once a year we’ll catch up, maybe less, or

Else just daydreams while he’s working late

Thinks only of those friends and when they left

«Are we still friends at all, my friends?»

Can I leave?

Rewind and find a younger man

All hopes and goals and dreams alight and

Bright with friendship at the crossroads in the night

«Now make a choice,» the city said

We were barely twenty then, but

While I swore it my allegiance

They chose leaving, all my friends.

And

Now it’s letters, maybe phone calls, that

Come less and less each year

All addressed with wives and children

To the fool who chose to stay here

And it hurts me to know I’m alone now

And it’s worse when I know that I chose it

Don’t make the same mistake as me

Don’t make the same mistake

And now my friends have all left.

Or it’s been me gone all along.

I guess we all part one day and drop like leaves into The breeze.

And ain’t it wild?

Ain’t it bitter?

(Didn't it carry you from me?

) But it’s the coping with my fear that keeps me Here.

See, once it’s gone you

can’t retrieve it (Do I regret you? Can I forget you?) I still believe I might

get left here.

I Might turn 63 still sweeping up the gutters in the street or

weeding concrete.

Wait and see.

We’ll wait and see.

Or, rather, I will.

Only me

Only me

«Don't make the same mistake as me.

Say ‘Goodbye' and ‘Be gone' and ‘Be great'

and be done and be free.»