On a lone and windy hilltop, beneath a roof of tin
In a little wallpapered bedroom, I done my growin'
'Twas there I dreamt my dreams, there I hung my jeans
And wandered through my puberty as all do

My mother was a tight nut, bound up with false guilt
Strapped up in her fearing, wall she had built
An independent girl in a dark and cruel world
She'd lost the way to say, "Okay, now lay back"

We disagreed on most things, I shouted peace and love
The family of mankind, the symbol of the dove
She only saw the surface of things before her face
But I was young and argued on for hours

My father he liked poetry, a scholar he might have made
Had a nothing, born a poor boy, barefoot and underpaid
So the man worked with his hands, up and down the land
His dreams forgot he thought that I must follow

With his marks as worker's wisdom, he'd read a thing or two
He once had been a mason but he never followed through
Always kind and thoughtful, smelling of machine oil
And he read me poetry of visionaries

I flunked my way to college, a loser kind of school
But we bobbed and played time, arty, feeling cool
A chance to live an artist, diggin' the ravin' scene
Reading Kerouac and Ginsberg, well deuced

I was not academic, art and English neat
The history of mankind I liked that a bit
And what was I to do? The choices they were few
A downright disgrace to the working classes

A downright disgrace to the working classes
A downright disgrace to the working classes
A downright disgrace to the working classes