I-L-L-I-N-O-I-S!

Ring the bell and call or write us

I-L-L-I-N-O-I-S!

Can you call the Captain Clitus?

Logan, Grant, and Ronald Reagan

In the grave with Xylophagan

Do you know the ghost community?

Sound the horn, address the city



(Who will save it? Dedicate it?

Who will praise it? Commemorate it for you?)



We are awakened with the axe

Night of the Living Dead at last

They have begun to shake the dirt

Wiping their shoulders from the earth

I know, I know the nations past

I know, I know they rust at last

They tremble with the nervous thought

Of having been, at last, forgot



I-L-L-I-N-O-I-S!

Ring the bell and call or write us

I-L-L-I-N-O-I-S!

Can you call the Captain Clitus?

B-U-D-A! Caledonia!

S-E-C-O-R! Magnolia!

B-I-R-D-S! And Kankakee!

Evansville and Parker City



Speaking their names, they shake the flag

Waking the earth, it lifts and lags

We see a thousand rooms to rest

Helping us taste the bite of death

I know, I know my time has passed

I'm not so young, I'm not so fast

I tremble with the nervous thought

Of having been, at last, forgot



I-L-L-I-N-O-I-S!

Ring the bell and call or write us

I-L-L-I-N-O-I-S!

Can you call the Captain Clitus?

Comer and Potato Peelers!

G-R-E-E-N Ridge! Reeders

M-C-V-E-Y! And Horace!

E-N-O-S! Start the chorus



Corn and farms and tombs in Lemmon

Sailor Springs and all things feminine

Centerville and Old Metropolis

Shawneetown, you trade and topple us

I-L-L-I-N-O-I-S!

Hold your tongue and don't divide us

I-L-L-I-N-O-I-S!

Land of God, you hold and guide us