My father is a doctor, he's a family man
My mother works for charity whenever she can
And they're both good clean Americans who abide by the law
And they both stick up for liberty and they both support the war
My happiness was paid for when they laid their money down
For summers in a summer camp and winters in the town
My future in the system was talked about and planned
But I gave it up for music and the Free Electric Band
I went to school in handwashed shirts with neatly ordered hair
And the school was big and newly built and filled with light and air
And the teachers taught us values that we had to learn to keep
And they'd clip the ear of any idle kid who went to sleep
My father organised for me a college in the East
But I went to California, the sunshine and the beach
My parents and my lecturers could never understand
Why I gave it up for music and the Free Electric Band
Well, they used to sit and speculate upon their son's career
A lawyer or a doctor or a civil engineer
Just give me bread and water, put a guitar in my hand
'Cos all I need is music and the Free Electric Band
My father sent me money and I spent it very fast
On a girl I met in Berkeley in a social science class
Yes, and we learnt about her body, but her mind we didn't know
Until deep rooted attitudes and morals began to show
She wanted to get married, even though she never said
But I knew her well enough by now to see inside her head
She'd settle for suburbia and a little patch of land
So I gave her up for music and the Free Electric Band
Ooh... the Free Electric Band...