Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon,
The handmade blade, the child's balloon,
Eclipses both the sun and moon.
To understand, you know too soon there's no sense in trying.
Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn,
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece, the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born is busy dying.
Temptation's page flies out the door,
You follow, find yourself at war,
Watch waterfalls of pity roar,
You feel to moan, but, unlike before,
You discover that you'd just be one more person crying.
So, don't fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear.
It's alright, ma, I'm only sighing.
As some warn victory, some downfall,
Private reasons, great or small,
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say, "Don't hate nothing at all except hatred."
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark,
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark.
It's easy to see without looking too far that not much is really sacred.
While preachers preach of evil fates,
Teachers teach that knowledge waits,
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates,
Goodness hides behind its gates,
But even the president of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked.
And, though the rules of the road have been lodged,
It's only people's games that you got to dodge.
And it's alright, ma, I can make it.
Advertising signs that con
You into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done,
That can win what's never been won.
Meantime, life outside goes on all around you.
You lose yourself, you reappear,
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear,
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling, distant voice, unclear,
Startles your sleeping ears to hear that somebody thinks they really found you.
A question in your nerves is lit,
Yet you know there is no answer fit
To satisfy, ensure you not to quit,
To keep it in your mind and not forget
That it is not he or she or them or it that you belong to.
But, though the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools,
I got nothing, ma, to live up to.
For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree,
Who despise their jobs, their destinies,
Speak jealously of them that are free,
Do what they do just to be nothing more than something they invest in.
While some, on principles baptized
To strict party-platform ties,
Social clubs in drag disguise,
Outsiders they can freely criticize,
Tell nothing except who to idolize, and say, "God bless him."
1
While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat-race choir,
Bent out of shape from society's pliers,
Cares not to come up any higher,
But rather get you down in the hole that he's in.
But, I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault.
But it's alright, ma, if I can't please him.
Old-lady judges watch people in pairs,
Limited in sex they dare
To push fake morals, insult, and stare
While money doesn't talk, it swears,
Obscenity – who really cares? – propaganda all is phony.
While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security,
It blows their minds most bitterly,
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally, life sometimes must get lonely.
My eyes collide head-on with stuffed
Graveyards, false goals, I scuff
At pettiness, which plays so rough,
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs,
Kick my legs to crash it off,
Say, "OK, I've had enough, what else can you show me?"
And, if my thought-dreams could be seen,
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine.
But it's alright, ma, it's life and life only.
1
The sense I get from this verse (not to go into the meaning) is the following: "While some [people, who are by principle] baptized / To strict party-platform ties[, which are] / Social clubs in drag disguise, / Outsiders they can freely criticize outsiders, / Tell [them] nothing [but] who to idolize, and say, 'God bless him.'" A lot of the lyrics in this song are fragmentary and difficult to put together and some of the verses are not even complete sentences, almost as if they're unfinished thoughts or images. With that in mind, even if my interpretation of this verse seems to be incomplete, I think that that may be how it is no matter how one looks at it. I don't believe, after studying these lyrics intently, that there is a different interpretation under which the verse would make complete sense grammatically, even though there certainly are other valid ways to interpret the verse.