Jason Robert Brown
How Can I Call This Home?
[LEO FRANK]
I go to bed at night
Hoping when I wake
This will all be gone
Like it was just a dream
And I'll be home again
Back again in Brooklyn
Back with people who look like I do
And talk like I do
And think like I do
But then
The sun rises in Atlanta again...

[LEO, ASSORTED SPECTATORS]
These people make me tense
I live in fear they'll start a conversation
These people make no sense
They talk and I just stare and shut my mouth
It's like a foreign land
I didn't understand
That being southern's not just
Being in the South
When I look out on all this La la la in the
How can I call this home? Land o' cotton

[LEO]
These men belong in zoos
It's like they never joined civilization
The Jews are not like Jews
I thought that Jews were Jews
But I was wrong
I thought I would be fine
But four years down the line
With every word it's very clear
I don't belong:
I don't cuss, I don't drawl
So how can I call this home?

Home calls and I'm free of
The southern breeze
Free of magnolia trees
And endless sunshine!

[LEO, ENSEMBLE]
Ever more lives the dream of Atlanta Ever more lives the dream
But not mine! Of Atlanta
Not mine

A yankee with a college education We stand together
Who by his own design In the great state of Georgia!
Is trapped inside the land
That time forgot!
Strong and
I'm trapped inside this life Proud!
And trapped beside a wife
Who would prefer I'd say
"Howdy!", not "Shalom!"
[LEO, ENSEMBLE I, ENSEMBLE II]
Well, I'm sorry, Lucille God bless the sight
But I feel what I feel Of the old hills Ever more lives the
And this place is surreal Of Georgia! Dream of Atlanta
The old red hills of Ever more Her eternal
So how can I call this home? Old red hills of home! Old red hills of home!