Westbound train from DC    Slept right through the night    Woke up in Ohio    With the early specs of light    There's ghost towns on this railway    Right off to the side    There's a million empty houses    The place where a city died       Clinton wasn't the first one    To take the jobs away    Riding the train through Gary    The remnants still remain    The rusty broken factories    The streets just barley paved    Reality is nothing like    The promises they made       They told us all of progress    That soon it would reverse    It's been too many years now,    And it's only getting worse       The steel plant pumps the smoke out    Skeletons walk the road    The Amtrak doesn't stop here    But it runs by pretty slow    All these towns are gone now    They only keep their names    And looking further eastward, yeah    It only stays the same       From Illinois to Maryland    The poverty has spread    Left the pockets of the poor all filled    With caps of heroin    The streets are busy with the self-employed    They sling and sing for change    The only things left running    Are the sirens and the trains       They told us all of progress    That soon it would reverse    It's been too many years now,    And it's only getting worse    They call this place the Rust Belt    This length of broken homes    Where the exploitation of working people    Started long ago    It's so far from the glamor    Yet so close to the fame    But the only it's known for    Is it's tolerance of pain       Looking back on history,    We we're always underpaid    It's a testing ground for a system based    On unrestricted trade    First you give employment    Then you build up trust    Then you flee with the profits    And leave the rest to rust       They told us all of progress    That soon it would reverse    It's been too many years now,    And it's only getting worse