Symbols of democracy pinned up against the coast

Outhouse of bureaucracy surrounded by a moat

Citizens of poverty are barely out of sight

Overlords escape in the evening with people of the night

Morning brings the tourists peering eyes and rubber necks

To catch a glimpse of the cowboy making the world a nervous wreck

It's a mass of irony for all the world to see

It's the nation's capital it's Washington D C

It's the nation's capital

It's the nation's capital

It's the nation's capital it's Washington D C

May not have the glitter or the glamour of L A

May not have the history or the intrigue of Pompeii

But when it comes to making music and sure enough making news

People who just don't make sense and people making do

Seems a ball of contradictions pulling different ways

Between the folks who come and go and one's who've got to stay

It's a mass of irony for all the world to see

It's the nation's capital it's Washington D C

It's the nation's capital

It's the nation's capital

It's the nation's capital it's Washington D C

Seems to me it's still in light time people knifed up on 14th street

Makes me feel it's always the right time for them people showing up and coming clean

Did make the one seem kind of numb

It's the nation's capital

It's the nation's capital

It's the nation's capital it's Washington D C

Symbols of democracy pinned up against the coast

Outhouse of bureaucracy surrounded by a moat

Citizens of poverty are barely out of sight

Overlords escape in the evening with people of the night

Morning come and bring the tourists craning rubber necks

Catch a glimpse of the cowboy making the world a nervous wreck

It's a mass of irony for all the world to see

It's the nation's capital it's Washington D C

It's the nation's capital

It's the nation's capital

It's the nation's capital it's Washington D C

It's the nation's capital

Got you feeling capital

Punishment is capital in Washington D C