A Dream Foreclosed

Life used to be so normal
I remember how normal it was
Take a shower, eat breakfast, go to work every morning
Do the things a fella does
We paid our mortgage every month
Managed that OK
But when the mortgage doubled
Then we couldn’t pay
And now life takes a turn I never had supposed
Living in a dream foreclosed

I’d go off to work
My kids would go to school
I even joined the Army once
Now I feel like such a fool
It’s not that life was easy then
But at least it made some sense
You weren’t worried about freezing to death
Not like living in these tents
You weren’t worried about the cops
Getting out a firehose
Living in a dream foreclosed

Lots of folks in town don’t realize
How we’re living these days
But you can see it in the childrens’
Thousand-mile gaze
I’ve got a head full of home movies
About all the things I miss
They say we need four walls
But they weren’t talking of walls like this
Maybe we’ll go find another country to live in
‘Cause life in this one blows
Living in a dream foreclosed

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“A Dream Foreclosed” first appeared in album form on Everything Can Change, 2013. It was written as a response to the foreclosure crisis, part and parcel of the banking crisis, subprime mortgage crisis, otherwise known altogether as the Global Financial Crisis, which some leftists just refer to as the GFC. The statistic that is always so striking is the number of empty homes compared with the number of homeless people. Both in the millions nationwide, and comparable enough numbers that, with a good dose of social democracy, we could end homelessness as well as so-called blighted neighborhoods at the same time, pretty quick. Oh, and we could restore that little thing they used to call “the American Dream,” which is all about home ownership, college education, and a stable, well-paying job, all of which are currently pipe dreams for most Americans, I’d venture to estimate.