you cease to smell the steel plant after you've lived here for a while
smoke is snow is ash are leaves that blow through the air aloft
and our houses dim their siding to the same soot grey style
and we hang our laundry out on sundays when they turn the furnaces off
and everybody's daddy works up on the line
the steinbrenners and the wilczewskis have been here the longest time
and everybody's mommy squints into the sun
sunday afternoon after all the laundry's done

sometimes a distant siren can set a dog to barking late at night
and then it dominos on down 'til every dog is joining in
and the first rumors of the lay-offs sing like a distant siren might
and we all perked up our ears and paced the fence of the ensuing din
and every night were glued to the tv news at six o'clock
'cuz it was hard to tell what was real and what was talk
and they explained about the cutbacks all with earnest frowns
but what they didn't say was that the plant was slowly shutting down

this town is not the kind of place that money people go
they make their jokes up on the tv about all the snow
and they're building condos down river from where the plant had been
but nobody really lives here now that the air is clean
and the president assured us that it was all gonna trickle down
like it'd be raining so much money that we'd be sad to see the sun
mr. wilczewski's brother had some business out in denver so they left town
everybody knows they were the lucky ones

you cease to smell the steel plant after you've lived here for a while