Lyrics She Is Always Seventeen - Harry Chapin

She Is Always Seventeen

She has no fear of failure, she’s not bent with broken dreams
For the future’s just beginning when you’re always seventeen
It was nineteen sixty-one when we went to Washington;
She put her arms around me and said, «Camelot's begun.»
We listened to his visions of how our land should be;
We gave him our hearts and minds to send across the sea
Nineteen sixty-three, white and black upon the land;
She brought me to the monuments and made us all join hands
And scarcely six months later she held me through the night
When we heard what had happened in that brutal Dallas light
Oh, she is always seventeen;
She has a dream that she will lend us and a love that we can borrow
There is so much joy inside her she will even share her sorrow;
She’s our past, our present, and our promise of tomorrow
Oh, truly she’s the only hope I’ve seen, and she is always seventeen
It was nineteen sixty-five and we were marching once more
From the burning cities against a crazy war
Memphis, L.A. and Chicago we bled through sixty-eight
Till she took me up to Woodstock saying with love it’s not too late
We started out the seventies living off the land;
She was sowing seeds in Denver trying to make me understand
That mankind is woman and woman is man
And until we free each other we cannot free the land
Oh, she is always seventeen;
She has a dream that she will lend us and a love that we can borrow
There is so much joy inside her she will even share her sorrow;
She’s our past, our present, and our promise of tomorrow
Oh, truly she’s the only hope I’ve seen, and she is always seventeen
Nineteen seventy-two, I’m at the end of my rope
But she was picketing the White House chanting
«The truth’s the only hope.»
In nineteen seventy-five when the crooked king was gone
She was feeding starving children saying the dream must go on
She is always seventeen;
She has a dream that she will lend us and a love that we can borrow
There is so much joy inside her she will even share her sorrow;
She’s our past, our present, and our promise of tomorrow
Oh, truly she’s the only hope I’ve seen, and she is always seventeen