Everybody's Got A Cousin In Miami

Lyrics

It was ninety miles to freedom but they took the risk  
Though the ocean was all motion and the wind was brisk  
The deadly gunboats never saw them in the pale moonlight  
They were off to Cayo Hueso by the dawns early light  
The gringo in the garden called the customs man  
They answered all his questions, were allowed to land  
The ladies shared a hairbrush and their husbands had a coke  
Then they were taken up to Krome to meet with their kin folk  
  
Everybody's got a cousin in Miami  
Everybody understands the impromptu  
Dancing in the heat to the beat  
That turns your clothing clammy  
Everybody needs to have a dream come true  
  
In a third world jungle not so far away  
Lives a natural drummer with a dream to play  
He's the brother of the lizard and the flying fish  
But he's been enchanted by the pictures  
From the satellite dish  
So his mama packs his bags, knots his red neck tie  
Sends him north to her relations with a kiss good-bye  
He's bewildered by the plane ride and the immigration line  
Until he sees his Christian name upon a cardboard sign  
  
Everybody's got a cousin in Miami  
Everybody is an Aborigine  
Dancing in the heat to the beat  
That turns your clothing clammy  
Everybody wants to win that lottery  
  
It's hard to believe the city started as a trading post  
Home to the Seminole, pirate and pioneer  
Between the river of grass and the old mosquito coast  
Before the railroad claimed the southernmost frontier  
  
I am umbilically connected to the temperate zone  
It brought me life, it brought me love  
I never have outgrown  
It brought me one too many nights along that Biscayne shore  
And one too many mornings in the Grove Drug Store  
In one way or the other we're all refugees  
Living out this easy life below the banyan trees  
Smoothing off the rougher edges of the culture clash  
We got a style, we got a look  
We got that old panache