Summer of '76
I was just a kid in seventy-six   

With a bicycle and a baseball mitt   

And everywhere you looked that summer   

There was red and white and blue   

Mama bought me a Bicentennial T-shirt   

With an eagle spread across the front  

I wore that thing till the colors faded   

And the sleeves were coming undone

Our teacher gave us all a project   

To celebrate two hundred years   

We painted fire hydrants in the neighborhood   

With our classmates and our friends   

Some were soldiers, some were flags   

Some had stars around the top   

We'd ride our bikes to see each other's   

Like a little hometown art shop

And every time we'd pass one   

We'd point and proudly say   

"Hey, I helped paint that one!"   

Like we'd made the whole town great

Oh, the summer of seventy-six   

Red, white, and blue on everything   

Two hundred years of America   

And every kid felt like a king   

We didn't know much about history   

But we knew we were part of it   

And I'd give anything to go back   

To the summer of seventy-six

We checked the change from every grocery trip   

For those quarters with the drummer on the back   

Seventeen seventy-six, nineteen seventy-six   

We thought we'd struck it rich with that  

I'd line 'em up across my dresser   

And count 'em every other night   

Wouldn't spend one on a candy bar   

Those quarters were worth more than that to my eyes

Every store had shirts and banners   

Eagles, flags, and liberty bells   

Even the corner gas station   

Had a little something they could sell   

Mama hung a flag out on the porch   

Daddy put a sticker on the car   

And every kid on every street   

Was seeing fireworks before it got dark

Oh, the summer of seventy-six   

Red, white, and blue on everything   

Two hundred years of America   

And every kid felt like a king   

We didn't know much about history   

But we knew we were part of it   

And I'd give anything to go back   

To the summer of seventy-six

I remember watching television   

When those tall ships sailed into New York   

All those sails across the harbor   

Like the pictures in our history books   

Mama called us in from playing   

Said, "Come on, you need to see this"   

And for once we didn't argue   

We just sat there watching it

Then came the Fourth of July   

With the whole neighborhood outside   

Lawn chairs scattered down the sidewalk   

And sparklers lighting up the night

We waved our little paper flags   

As the fireworks filled the sky   

And I remember thinking to myself   

"What a time to be alive"

Oh, the summer of seventy-six   

I can still see it all so clear   

Those painted hydrants on the corners   

And that shirt I wore all year   

A drummer quarter in my pocket   

And my whole world still ahead   

Two hundred years of America   

And a thousand dreams inside my head

Oh, the summer of seventy-six   

Before those childhood days were through  

When the whole country had a birthday   

And every town was red, white, and blue

Found an old Bicentennial quarter   

In a drawer the other day   

I turned it over in my fingers   

And watched forty years and more fall away

I saw my classmates with their paintbrushes   

Those tall ships sailing on TV   

Mama standing in the doorway   

And that summer coming back to me

I put that quarter in my pocket   

Like I did when I was a kid

Some things are still worth keeping

From the summer of seventy-six.