I saw the best of my generation playing pinball   Make-up on, all caked up    Looking like some kind of china doll   With all of Adolf Hitler's moves down cold   As they stood up in front    Of a rock and roll band   And always moving upward and ever upward   To this gentle golden promised land   With the smartest of them all    Moonlighting as a word processor   And the strongest of them all    Checking IDs outside a saloon   And the prettiest of all    Taking off her clothes   In front of men    Whose eyes look like they were in some little hick town    Near Omaha    Watching the police chief    Run his car off the side of a bridge      I saw a men with dreams    Like the ones I'd had   Beg quarters outside the Seven-Eleven   Till it got so they didn't affect me anymore   Than the mailboxes I'd passed    'Cept that sometimes   I'd put somthing in the mailbox      I'd had the wind at my back    Now I felt it cold in my face   And for an awful long time now    You were the only one who ever    Called me late at night    And I really never noticed    Till after you stopped calling    And the emptiness    And silence    Got so heavy      Broken up in the wasteland    Broken up in the promised land   Broken up in Disneyland    Broken up in the plastic land   Broken up in the wasteland    Broken up in the wasteland   Broken up in the wasteland      I saw dead Marilyn Monroe    Strung up on every street corner in Hollywood    Like some two bit whore    Offering a discount rate   And I wondered how Joe Dimaggio felt   I saw dead James Dean's ghost    Wandering the sidewalk looking troubled    And I wondered how his mama felt   I saw signs that said "Headshots done for cheap"   Signs that said "Extras wanted, top dollars paid"   Signs for "Haircuts"    Signs for "Manicures"    And signs for "Tanning salons"    And signs for "Wardrobe specialists"   Signs for "Cosmetic surgery"    And signs for "Assertiveness training"   And I stopped to read them all      And every single block    Looked like every single block   Looked like every single block    Looked like every single block   But she kept driving    'Cause everyone else kept driving    And cause gridlock is evil    And not knowing anywhere is evil      And those that had money    Looked good but weren't too happy   And those who didn't have money    Didn't look so good and weren't too happy either    And in a city of three million   Two hundred and sixty nine thousand    Nine hundred eighty four   Everyone was lonely      Broken up in the wasteland    Broken up in the promised land   Broken up in Disneyland    Broken up in the plastic land   Broken up in the wasteland    Broken up in the wasteland   Broken up in the wasteland      And I watched as everyone I knew    Spent their lives    Trying to be watched on stage    Watched on film   Or listened to on a record    And they thought   "Well, maybe that way    I could get a little love out of this life"   And I watched as the best of my generation    Abandoned their dreams   And settled for making a little money   I watched TV    Read the papers    Listend to the radio   And made all the fancy scenes    And said all the right words   And wore all the right clothes    And knew the names of the hip people   But I still felt out of touch    So I stopped watching TV   And reading the papers    And listening to the radio   And making the fancy scenes    And saying the right words   And wearing the right clothes    And knowing the names of the hip people   And I felt more out of touch than ever    But I didn't care anymore      And I felt you slipping away    And I felt myself slipping from you   And I wanted more than anything else    For it to rain for one whole day    Like it used to    But all there ever was was sun   Relentless sun    Hot beating sun    And everyone wore their sunglasses    And walked around like flies    Under magnifyng glass   With their eyes removed      Broken up in the wasteland    Broken up in the promised land   Broken up in Disneyland    Broken up in the plastic land   Broken up in the wasteland    Broken up in the wasteland   Broken up in the wasteland