Forward Into the Past

There's a bloodshot moon rising on the cornfield Since she went away A rusty ax laying in the barnyard It's seen better days The banks are telling him he should sell He's telling them to go straight to hell Everyone is heading for the city Giving up on the land Taking jobs with the big corporations Too tired to make a stand The dusty roads are all empty now The wind and weather have taken 'em all to task The frontier is returning Forward into the past From the silent frozen winter, to dark and endless night Where the plains stretch out forever in a sea of barren white To the billion dollar merger, to bailouts in the east Where currencies are mangled and Wall Street has a feast Independence is our motive, out of favor, out of sync Abandoned and forgotten, discarded in the blink of an eye His hometown's nearly empty now Schools and churches too The trains have stopped for a hundred years They just rumble through The trucks stay out on the big highway His whole way of life is fading fast The tall grass is returning Forward into the past Forward into the past Forward into the past Forward into the past Forward into the past