Southern California Wants To Be Western New York

(album: Mortal City - 1996)

There's a part of the country could drop off tomorrow in an earthquake
Yeah it's out there on the cutting edge, the people move, the sidwalks shake
And there's another part of the country with a land that gently creaks and thuds
Where the heavy snows make faucets leak in bathrooms with free-standing tubs
They're in houses that are haunted, the with kids who lie awake and think about
All the generations past who used to use that dripping sink

And sometimes one place wants to slip into the other just to see
What it's like to trade its demons for the restless ghost of Mrs. Ogilvey
She used to pick the mint from her front yard to dress the Sunday pork
Sometimes southern California wants to be western New York

It wants to have a family business in sheet metal or power tools
It wants to have a diner where the coffee tastes like diesel fuel
And it wants to find the glory of a town they say has hit the skids
And it wants to have a snow day that will turn its parents into kids
And it's embarrassed, but it's lusting after a SUNY student with mousy brown hair who is
Taking out the compost, making coffee in long underwear

And southern California says to save a place, I'll meet you there
And it tried to pack up its Miata, all it could fit was a prayer
Sometimes the stakes are bogus, sometimes the fast lane hits a fork
Sometimes southern California wants to be western New York

Tempe, Arizona thinks the Everglades are greener and wetter
And Washington, D. C. thinks that Atlanta integrated better
But I think that southern California has more pain that we can say
Cause it wants to travel back in time, but it just can't leave L.A.

But now I hear they've got a theme park planned, designed to make you gasp and say
Oh, I bet that crumbling mill town was a booming mill town in its day
And the old investors scoff at this, but the young ones hope they'll take a chance
And they promise it will make more dough than Mickey Mouse in northern France
And the planners planned an opening day, a town historian will host
And the waitresses look like waitresses who want to leave for the west coast

And they'll have puttering on rainy weekends, autumn days that make you feel sad
They'll have hundred year old plumbing and the family you never had
And a Hudson River clean-up concert and a bundle-bearing stork
And I hear they've got a menu planned, it's trés western New York