Born down in a dead man's town   the first kick I took was when I hit the ground   You end up like a dog that's been beat too much   Till you spend half your life just covering up   Born in the USA   I was born in the USA   I was born in the USA   Born in the USA      Got in a little hometown jam   So okay put a rifle in my hands   Send me off to a foreign land to go and kill the yellow man   Born in the USA....      Come back home to the refinery   Hiring man said "son if it was up to me"   Went down to see my V.A. man   He said "son don't you understand now"   Had a brother at Khe Sahn fighting off the Viet cong   They're still there he's all gone   He had a woman he loved in Saigon   I got a picture of him in her arms now      Down in the shadow of the penitentiary   Out by the gas fires of the refinery   I'm ten years burning down the road   Nowhere to run ain't got nowhere to go      Born in the USA