This Could Be Anywhere

Cold concrete apartments

Rise up from wet black asphalt

Below them a few carcasses

Of the long-gone age of privacy

It takes a scary kind of illness

To design a place like this for pay

Downtown's an endless generic mall

Of video games and fast food chains

One by one, the little houses are bricked up and condemned

A subtle hint to move before the rats move in

This could be anywhere

Could be anywhere

Everywhere

Those new kids at school seem cool

But dad says not to talk to them

Stick to your old friends, they're not our kind

So now there's lots of fights

So many people I know

Come of age tense and bitter-eyed

Can't create so they just destroy

Come on, let's set someone's dog on fire

Empty plastic culture slum, suburbia is a war zone now

Sprouting the kinds of gangs we thought we'd left behind

This could be anywhere

Could be anywhere

Everywhere

Could be anywhere

Could be everywhere

Could be anywhere

Kids at school are taking sides

Along color and uniform lines

My dad's gone and bought a gun

He says he's fed up with the crime in this town

This could be anywhere

This could be everywhere

This could be anywhere

This could be everywhere

This could be anywhere (anywhere)

This could be everywhere (everywhere)

This could be anywhere (anywhere)

This could be everywhere

I hope I'm gone before it explodes

I linger late at night waiting for the bus

No amount of neon jazz could hide the oozing vibes of death

My dad's a vigilante now, he's bringing home these weird-ass friends

Like the guy who fires blanks at his TV when Kojak's on

Or the guy who shows off his sub-machine gun

To his sixteen year old daughter's friends

Whose sense of pride and hope is being in the police reserve