"USA" lyrics

When I was young, I watched the cars
When I was older, I drank in bars
When I was young, I chewed the leaves
When I was older, I drank with thieves

I found a love, she gave me dreams
She left me drunk in New Orleans
So cold and lonely, so all alone
I wished my heart was made of stone

I took the cold bright needle, I used it as a sword
My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
I burned across the delta, swam across the ford
My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord

When I was a young man, standing on this road
My empty belly an aching hole
An old man said to me, "Kid, don't you know
That it's the same wherever you go?"

I gambled in two graveyards, won against the odds
With saints and with saviors, with the maggots and the gods
I cursed the things they showed me I could never see again
And the howling of the wind at night, I wrote upon the rain

I found the thing for which I prayed
And came back home to the USA
With a heart of stone so now I know
That it's the same wherever you go

Wherever you go
Wherever you go
Wherever you go
Wherever you go

Down, down, hear it come down
Down, down, hear it come down
Down, down, hear it come down
Down, down, hear it come down