13 Illinois

Illinois

Just on highway 71
Side-view mirror full of setting sun
Off on the shoulder, take a look at a map
We’re on the right track, kids are sleeping in the back
Cornfields stretching out for miles and miles
See another soul every little while
Smells I remember from when I was a boy
I’m just a kid from Illinois

Illinois, a big piece of flat land
But it was home to a woman and a man
Woman and a man had a little boy
I’m that kid from Illinois

I’ve made this trip about a thousand times
Same old barns, same white lines
126 up to the interstate
Flying on home to my city on the lake
Smokestacks still on a Sunday night
Skyline orange in the day’s last light
Photograph frozen in the mind of a boy
I’m just a kid from Illinois

In Illinois you can see for days
From down along Kentucky up north along the way
To the stone walls out where the water breaks
From the Shawnee Forest to the Chain o’ Lakes
From Calhoun County to the beach at Zion
From the Mississippi River to the Indiana line
I can’t lay claim to a Rocky Mountain high
I’m just a kid from Illinois

Illinois is just a handshake deal
From the steel mills out to the soybean fields
Fields I walked when I was just a little boy
I’m just a kid from Illinois

Copyright Ken Saydak 1993, Margan Music, BMI