I grew up on the Indiana side of Chicago With the rusty steel mills belching in the westward wind I watched Mom and Dad trying to clean their sorrow With my brothers and me at old Lake Michigan There's a little boy He's got big brown eyes He's got swimming trunks 'bout twice his size Looking at a steel mill sunset Skipping a stone, "hey, ain't you a little young To feel so alone?" Well they changed the name of my hometown When we moved away Now it's more than words that I don't recognize That kid down at the filling station Tried to keep my change from a twenty I could see that cold a**urance in his eyes Hey you need ten dollars for the rainy day?
Save and go to college or just get away Or you could spend that money on a two-day stone Oh, there are worse things in this world than being alone Let me tell you now… So, if you're driving from Chicago, east of Gary And you find a fallen town that has two names There'll be no one to possibly remember A little lonesome brown-eyed boy who went by James Oh the mill's shut down But the air's still sour You get a hotel room You gotta pay by the hour Oh the good old days are just good and gone Like autumn leaves on a burning lawn I grew up on the Indiana side of Chicago With the rusty steel mills belching in the westward wind