She Is Always Seventeen

She has no fear of failure
She's not bent with broken dreams
For the future's just beginning
When you're always seventeen

It was nineteen sixty-one
When we went to Washington
She put her arms around me
And said, "Camelot's begun"

We listened to his visions
Of how our land should be
We gave him our hearts and minds
To send across the sea

Nineteen sixty-three
White and black upon the land
She brought me to the monuments
And made us all join hands

And scarcely six months later
She held me through the night
When we heard what had happened
In that brutal Dallas light
Oh, she is always seventeen

She has a dream that she will lend us
And a love that we can borrow
There is so much joy inside her
She will even share her sorrow

She's our past, our present
And our promise of tomorrow
Oh, truly she's the only hope I've seen
And she is always seventeen

It was nineteen sixty-five
And we were marching once more
From the burning cities
Against a crazy war

Memphis, L.A. and Chicago
We bled through sixty-eight
Till she took me up to Woodstock
Saying with love, it's not too late

We started out the seventies
Living off the land
She was sowing seeds in Denver
Trying to make me understand

That mankind is woman
And woman is man
And until we free each other
We cannot free the land
Oh, she is always seventeen

She has a dream that she will lend us
And a love that we can borrow
There is so much joy inside her
She will even share her sorrow

She's our past, our present
And our promise of tomorrow
Oh, truly she's the only hope I've seen
And she is always seventeen

Nineteen seventy-two
I'm at the end of my rope
But she was picketing
The White House chanting, A.C.A.