American Dreamers - Old Home Movie

American Dreamers - Old Home Movie - Goran Bregovic

One thing I was sure of

That my uncle Leo was definitely the hero of my childhood

The smell of his old spice cologne carried me

Back into that lost childhood more than the home movies did

My uncle didn't know it but it was the sweet

Cheap smell of car dealers that took me back

And made me dissolve into a dream of the past

Leo was the last dinosaur that smelled of cheap cologne

And he believed in the American dream

I was crazy about him because he believed in miracles

And Even though he lived inside of life and sold Cadillacs

He always looked like a ten-year-old boy whose sleeves were too long

When I was ten Leo gave me this great movie camera

And my mother always hoped I'd become the next Milton Berle

But dreams of houses and cars and fresh-cut lawns

Aren't dreams when they become real

And somehow I understood what my mother

Meant by good morning Columbus

And even if my mother didn't like

What I was doing with my life

I think she'd understand

When I was 11I got this really weird earache

That wouldn't go away

I went to about a hundred doctors

But none of them could help me

So what Leo did was he went into Mexico

And brought back this fat lady witch doctor

Who did this mumbo-jumbo and fixed me right up

I was grateful but somehow I thought

I might've been better off mute

All in all I had a very happy childhood

My father was a border guard who spent most of his life

Trying to keep people from crossing lines

Every night for 15years he'd go out and smooth

Down the road between Mexico and Arizona

And every morning he'd be out there

Looking for footprints in the dirt

But my father always said that work was like a hat

You put on your head

And even if you didn't have pants

You didn't have to walk

Down the street ashamed of your a*s

So long as you had a hat

And if somebody was to ask me

Why I don't get up right now

And take the next train back to New York

It's because you can't say no to your childhood hero

I decided to be his best man

But one thing I was sure of

No matter how much I loved the smell of cheap cologne

I was never going to become my uncle

And I was never going to sell Cadillacs