Baby picks off your plate--yours looks better

And she throws hers on the floor

Here, in the home of the brave

And the land of the free

The first word that baby learns is "more"



So you're out there floating like a big, puffy cloud

With the pool and the charcoal

and the kids and the wife

'Til the reruns of your dreams are interrupted

And you step out into life



And it's still gimme, gimme what you got

Gimme, gimme what you got

I said gimme, gimme what you got

(I want it, I want it)

Gimme, gimme what you got



Now it's take and take takeover, takeover

It's all take and never give

All these trumped up towers

They're just golden showers

Where are people supposed to live?



You can arm yourself, alarm yourself

But there's nowhere you can run

'Cause a man with a briefcase

can steal more money

Than any man with a gun



I said gimme, gimme what you got

Said gimme, gimme what you got

Gimme, gimme what you got

Gimme, gimme what you got



You got the price of admission--

You don't have to ask permission

To take somethin' from another man

You cross a lawyer with the godfather, baby

Make you an offer that you can't understand



From Main Street to Wall Street to Washington

From men to women to men

It's a nation of noses pressed up against the glass

They've seen it on the TV

And they want it pretty fast



You spend your whole life

Just pilin' it up there

You got stacks and stacks and stacks

Then, Gabriel comes and taps you on the shoulder

But you don't see no hearses with luggage racks



Gimme, gimme what you got

I said gimme, gimme what you got

I said gimme, gimme what you got

(I want it, I want it)

Gimme, gimme what you got



Written by Don Henley, Stan Lynch and John Corey

*Produced by Don Henley, Stan Lynch and John Corey



John Corey, Stan Lynch--basic track

Danny Kortchmar--lead guitar

Melissa Etheridge, Edie Brickell--background harmony vocals

(c) 1988 Cass County Music/Matanzas Music ASCAP