For the future's just beginning when you're always seventeen.

 It was nineteen sixty-one when we went to Washington;
 she put her arms around me and said, "Camelot's begun."
 We listened to his visions of how our land should be;
 we gave him our hearts and minds to send across the sea.
 Nineteen sixty-three, white and black upon the land;
 she brought me to the monuments and made us all join hands.
 And scarcely six months later she held me through the night
 when we heard what had happened in that brutal Dallas light.

 Oh, she is always seventeen;
 she has a dream that she will lend us and a love that we can borrow.
 There is so much joy inside her she will even share her sorrow;
 she's our past, our present, and our promise of tomorrow.
 Oh, truly she's the only hope I've seen, and she is always seventeen.

 It was nineteen sixty-five and we were marching once more
 from the burning cities against a crazy war.
 Memphis, L.A. and Chicago we bled through sixty-eight
 till she took me up to Woodstock saying with love it's not too late.
 We started out the seventies living off the land;
 she was sowing seeds in Denver trying to make me understand
 that mankind is woman and woman is man,
 and until we free each other we cannot free the land.

 Oh, she is always seventeen;
 she has a dream that she will lend us and a love that we can borrow.
 There is so much joy inside her she will even share her sorrow;
 she's our past, our present, and our promise of tomorrow.
 Oh, truly she's the only hope I've seen, and she is always seventeen.

 Nineteen seventy-two, I'm at the end of my rope,
 but she was picketing the White House chanting,
 "The truth's the only hope."
 In nineteen seventy-five when the crooked king was gone
 she was feeding starving children saying the dream must go on.
 she is always seventeen;
 she has a dream that she will lend us and a love that we can borrow.
 There is so much joy inside her she will even share her sorrow;
 she's our past, our present, and our promise of tomorrow.
 Oh, truly she's the only hope I've seen, and she is always seventeen