Grandpa hit the golden shores of freedom,
On the run from a government that governed down the barrel of a gun,
He'd lost a lot of family. he'd lost a lot of friends,
It was like another planet, one where everything depended on the mercy of the monarch, the wisdom of the state,
They waited for a thousand years, but nothing ever changed,
So they walked across the deserts and sailed across the seas,
Went looking for that statue in the land of liberty,

Anyone could see that they were stuck,
Stuck in the middle,
Stuck in the middle of the beginning of the end.

Papa was a farm boy, California born,
Growing up in paradise until the second war, when they put him in an aeroplane and loaded it with bombs,
Sent him over there, said 'Don't come back until they're gone,'
They dropped them on the cities, dropped them on the towns,
They were trying to blow up Hitler, he was trying to shoot them down,
Now papa hated killing just as much as you and me, but he knew he had to do it,
He could tell instinctively...

That he was stuck,
Stuck in the middle,
Stuck in the middle of the beginning of the end.

Of the end,
Of the tunnel,
Of the end,
Of the line,
It's the end of the American century,
The end of the endless summertime.

Now they've handed us the mantle and they've handed us the key,
Left us sitting here in limbo in the lap of luxury,
With a pocket full of credit cards and a mountain full of debt,
And a picture of the future that I'd just as soon forget,
There's heavy metal poison and the voices on TV,
And a million cartoon images of how it's supposed to be,
Changing set of values more depressing every day,
'Til I wish that, just like grandpa, I could make my getaway,
But there's no place left to go.

I guess I'm stuck,
Stuck in the middle,
Stuck in the middle of the beginning of the end,
I guess I'm stuck in the middle of the beginning of the end,
Looks like I'm stuck in the middle of the beginning of the end.