I-L-L-I-N-O-I-S! Ring the bell and call or write us I-L-L-I-N-O-I-S! Can you call the Captain Clitus? Logan, Grant, and Ronald Reagan In the grave with Xylophagan Do you know the ghost community? Sound the horn, address the city
(Who will save it? Dedicate it? Who will praise it? Commemmorate it for you?)
We are awaken with the ax Night of the Living Dead at last They have begun to shake the dirt Wiping their shoulders from the earth I know, I know the nations past I know, I know they rust at last They tremble with the nervous thought Of having been, at last, forgot
I-L-L-I-N-O-I-S! Ring the bell and call or write us I-L-L-I-N-O-I-S! Can you call the Captain Clitus? B-U-D-A! Caledonia! S-E-C-O-R! Magnolia! B-I-R-D-S! And Kankakee! Evansville and Parker City
Speaking their names, they shake the flag walking the earth, it lifts and lags we see a thousand rooms to rest helping us taste the bite of death I know, I know my time has passed I'm not so young, I'm no so fast I tremble with the nervous thought Of having been, at last, forgot
I-L-L-I-N-O-I-S! Ring the bell and call or write us I-L-L-I-N-O-I-S! Can you call the Captain Clitus? Comer and Potato Peelers! G-R-E-E-N ridge! Reeders M-C-V-E-Y! And Horace! E-N-O-S! Start the chorus
Corn and Farms and Tombs in Lemmon Sailor Springs and all things feminine Centerville and Old Metropolis Shawneetown, you trade and topple us I-L-L-I-N-O-I-S! Hold your tongue and don't divide us I-L-L-I-N-O-I-S! Land of God, you hold and guide us