I saw the lights of the Commodore Barry
From the deck of the ghost of the Flower Street ferry
And I felt the shock of an atom bomb
When the tired old city of Chester was draped and dying in my arms
For a while I was lost under the weight of remembering
Of how the sun would warn the projects some mornings
When the birds were falling like winter's frozen rain
And I was all fingers numb, holding a brown paper lunch, twelve years old and already ashamed
Now soon I was floating over Highland Avenue
By my side was the Red Cross, the pope and the president too
Yeah I had returned like I swore I would
To right some wrongs, and sing my song, and share the luck that every man should
But when the fever broke and I awoke from the dream
I was passed out beside a jukebox siphoning gasoline
When my brother yanked me hard from the corner bar
And carried my drunk bones, all the way home, draped and heavy in his arms