There's a part of the country could drop off tomorrow in an earthquake
Yeah it's out there on the cutting edge, the people move, the sidewalks shake
And there's another part of the country, with a land that gently creaks and thuds
Where the heavy snows make faucets leak in bathrooms with free-standing tubs
They're in houses that are haunted, with the kids who lie awake and think about
All the generations past who used to use that dripping sink

And sometimes one place wants to slip into the other just to see what it's
Like to trade its demons for the restless ghost of Mrs. Ogilvey
She used to pick the mint from her front yard to dress the Sunday pork
Sometimes southern California wants to be western New York

It wants to have a family business in sheet metal or power tools
It wants to have a diner where the coffee tastes like diesel fuel and it
Wants to find the glory of a town they say has hit the skids and it
Wants to have a snow day that will turn its parents into kids
And it's embarassed, but it's lusting after a SUNY student with mousy-brown hair who is
Taking out the compost, making coffee in long underwear

Southern California says to save a place, "I'll meet you there" and it
Tried to pack up its Miata, all it could fit was a prayer
Sometimes the stakes are bogus, sometimes the fast lane hits a fork, sometimes
Southern California wants to be western New York

Tempe, Arizona thinks the Everglades are greener and wetter and
Washington, D.C. thinks Atlanta integrated better but I
Think that southern California has more pain than we can say cause it
Wants to travel back in time, but it just can't leave L.A.-ay-ay-ay

But now I hear they've got a theme park planned, designed to make you gasp and say:
Oh, I bet that crumbling mill town was a booming mill town in its day and the
Old investers scoff at this, but the young ones hope they'll take a chance and they
Promise it will make more dough than Mickey Mouse in northern France and the
Planners got an opening day, the town historian will host and the
Waitresses look like waitresses who want to leave for the west coast

And they'll have putterning on rainy weekends, autumn days that make you feel sad,
They'll have hundred-year-old plumbing and the family you never had and a
Hudson River clean-up concert and a bundle-bearing stork and I
Hear they've got a menu planned, it's tres western New York

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