Giving up on Your Hometown - Lori McKenna

Well, I don’t know

Where the cool kids hang on Friday night

Used to park our parent’s car by the billboard sign

They tore it down years ago to build a small highrise

It’s abandoned now

And it’s been that way for a while, sometime

It don’t make sense

But the cheap motel is always open

Seems like we’re sitting in a handbasket

Wondering where it’s going

There’s a freshwater shark in a small fish tank

Behind the counter

Door’s always locked

And you gotta pre-pay in cash by the hour

The sunsets still look the way they always do

Over the backyard trees

My grandma used to sit under in the afternoon

And you can’t keep everything the way you want it

Feels like even the ghosts are getting out

Giving up on your hometown

Every single sunday, 10AM

We were in that pew

I was married there and baptized there

And my kids were too

My mother sang in the women’s choir before she died

And the day they sold that church

Even the statue of Mother Mary cried

The sunsets still look the way they always do

Over the backyard trees

My grandma used to sit under in the afternoon

And you can’t keep everything the way you want it

Feels like even the ghosts are getting out

Giving up on your hometown

Giving up on your hometown

Every kid that’s left just kept going

And every debt we didn’t pay

We just keep owing

Never visit your daddy’s grave

But we go by the house

He’d be working on a car in the driveway

If he was with us now

And that porch swing you built for your mama

Is all but gone

I guess even when you stay right here

Sometimes you can’t go home

Giving up on your hometown

Giving up on your hometown

Giving up on your hometown