I grew up on the Indiana side of Chicago
With the rusty steel mills belching in the westward wind
I watched Mom and Dad trying to clean their sorrow
With my brothers and me at old Lake Michigan

There's a little boy
He's got big brown eyes
He's got swimming trunks ‘bout twice his size
Looking at a steel mill sunset
Skipping a stone, "hey, ain't you a little young
To feel so alone?"

Well they changed the name of my hometown
When we moved away
Now it's more than words that I don't recognize
That kid down at the filling station
Tried to keep my change from a twenty
I could see that cold assurance in his eyes

Hey you need ten dollars for the rainy day?
Save and go to college or just get away
Or you could spend that money on a two-day stone
Oh, there are worse things in this world than being alone
Let me tell you now…

So, if you're driving from Chicago, east of Gary
And you find a fallen town that has two names
There'll be no one to possibly remember
A little lonesome brown-eyed boy who went by James

Oh the mill's shut down
But the air's still sour
You get a hotel room
You gotta pay by the hour
Oh the good old days are just good and gone
Like autumn leaves on a burning lawn

I grew up on the Indiana side of Chicago
With the rusty steel mills belching in the westward wind