This is the number we close on, and it takes the long way home. It goes up over the western mountains and the ranch country, down across the factory towns, east toward the man across the water, and back again over a schoolyard—the whole country from the one height at which it looks like one thing. Nobody on the ground gets that view. That is what the eagle is for.

Everything it sees was really there this year. Meat and cheese went onto the ration points in March, and there was not a woman in America who had not stood in the line in the second verse. The shipyards are putting out Liberty ships faster than anyone thought a ship could be built, and a good share of the welders are women who had never held a torch before Pearl Harbor.

My alternate Earth was a little more enlightened in 1943 than this one—"different colors, different stories, but one united place"—but if I were creating a world—and I am—then by golly it's going to be one I'd want to live in. Besides, a song is allowed to be a little ahead of the news—that is most of what they are for.

I also used this number as the soundtrack to my very first music video! (Unless you count the one I made of my daughter dancing home from school to "Footloose" in 1984.) I hope you enjoy it, and let it take you back to a time when the whole country was working together for a common cause. May we be that way again! (But not because of war.)

High above the golden mountains, where the western winds belong,
The eagle spreads his mighty wings and hums a freedom song.
He sees the miners and the ranchers, every hand and every face—
Different colors, different stories, but one united place.

He glides above the bustling cities, where the factories roar and shine,
Where mothers pack the rationed goods and stand in every line.
He sees the welders and the shipwrights, working shoulder, heart, and hand—
All building up the strength we need to guard this precious land.

[Chorus]
And the eagle flies for freedom,
For the hopes we carry on.
From the prairies wide to the oceanside,
He keeps his vigil strong.
With a watchful eye on the open sky,
He guards us all day long—
Yes, the eagle flies for freedom,
And freedom is our song.

Now he turns his gaze eastward, past the sunrise's crimson glow,
Toward the shadow of that man who'd steal what we bestow.
But the eagle knows our courage, and the strength that keeps us free—
For every town and every farm stands firm in liberty.

[Chorus]
And the eagle flies for freedom,
For the hopes we carry on.
From the prairies wide to the oceanside,
He keeps his vigil strong.
With a watchful eye on the open sky,
He guards us all day long—
Yes, the eagle flies for freedom,
And freedom is our song.

He circles over quiet schoolyards where the children laugh and play,
Though their fathers march beyond our shores to keep the foe at bay.
The eagle blesses every family, every prayer and every tear—
And whispers that their sacrifice will keep our future clear.

[Chorus]
And the eagle flies for freedom,
For the hopes we carry on.
From the prairies wide to the oceanside,
He keeps his vigil strong.
With a watchful eye on the open sky,
He guards us all day long—
Yes, the eagle flies for freedom,
And freedom is our song.