- 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,
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- For Ike was in the White House in that land where we
were born,
- Where navels were for oranges, and Peyton Placewas porn.
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- We learned to gut a muffler, we washed our hair at dawn,
- We spread our crinolines to dry in circles on the lawn.
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- We longed for love and romance, and waited for our Prince,
- And Eddie Fisher married Liz, and no one's seen him since.
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- We danced to 'Little Darlin' and sang to 'Stagger Lee'
- And cried for Buddy Holly in the Land That Made Me...Me.
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- Only girls wore earrings then, and 3 was one too many,
- And only boys wore flat-top cuts, except for Jean McKinney.
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- And only in our wildest dreams did we expect to see
- A boy named George with Lipstick, in the Land That Made
Me...Me.
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- We fell for Frankie Avalon, Annette was oh, so nice,
- And when they made a movie, they never made it twice.
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- We didn't have a Star Trek Five, or Psycho Two and Three,
- Or Rocky-Rambo Twenty in the Land That Made Me...Me.
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- Miss Kitty had a heart of gold, and Chester had a limp,
- And Reagan was a Democrat whose co-star was a chimp.
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- We had a Mr. Wizard, but not a Mr. T ,
- And Oprah couldn't talk, yet, in the Land That Made Me...Me.
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- 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.
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- We'd never seen the rock band that was Grateful to be
Dead,
- And Airplanes weren't named Jefferson, and Zeppelins
were not Led.
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- And Beatles lived in gardens then, and Monkees lived
in trees,
- Madonna was a virgin in the Land That Made Me...Me.
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- We'd never heard of microwaves, or telephones in cars,
- And babies might be bottle-fed, but they weren't grown
in jars.
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- And pumping iron got wrinkles out, and 'gay' meant fancy-free,
- And dorms were never coed in the Land That Made Me...Me.
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- We hadn't seen enough of jets to talk about the lag,
- And microchips were what was left at the bottom of the
bag.
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- 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.
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- Buicks came with portholes, and side shows came with
freaks,
- And bathing suits came big enough to cover both your
cheeks.
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- And Coke came just in bottles, and skirts below the knee,
- And Castro came to power near the Land That Made Me...Me.
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- We had no Crest with Fluoride, we had no Hill StreetBlues,
- We had no patterned pantyhose or Lipton herbal tea
- Or prime-time ads for condoms in the Land That Made Me...Me.
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- There were no golden arches, no Perrier to chill,
- And fish were not called Wanda, and cats were not called
Bill.
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- 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.
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- They send us invitations to join AARP,
- We've come a long way, baby, from the Land That Made
Me...Me.
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- So now we face a brave new world in slightly larger jeans,
- And wonder why they're using smaller print in magazines.
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- 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.
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