Mr. Wilczewski's brother had some business
Till every dog is joining in
Then it dominoes on down
And sometimes a distant siren
And the president assured us
And we all perked up our ears
The Stienbrenners and the Wilczewskis
They explained about the cutbacks
But nobody really lives here
Was slowly shutting down
Smoke is snow is ash are leaves that blow
What they didn't say was that the plant
All the earnest frowns
Everybody knows they were the lucky ones
Like it'd be raining so much money
And everybody's mommy squints into the sun
Have been there the longest time
And we hang our laundry out on Sundays
You cease to smell the steel plant
From where the plant had been
Through the air aloft
And every night, we were glued to the TV news
Now that the air is clean
And paced the fence of the ensuing din
They make their jokes up on the TV
Out in Denver, so they left Denver
And what was talk
And they're building condos downriver
Sunday afternoon after all the laundry's done
That money people go
Can set a dog to barking late at night
This town is not the kind of place
All our houses dim their sliding
Sang like a distant siren might
Everybody's daddy works up on the line
At six o'clock
'Cuz it was hard to tell what was real
It was all gonna trickle down
About all the snow
To the same soot gray style
The first rumors of the lay offs
That we'd be sad to see the sun
When they turn the furnaces off
