This is called "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)".
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 that there is 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, it proves to warn
He not a-busy being born is a-busy dying.
Temptation's page flies out the door,
You follow, find yourself at war,
Watch a-waterfalls of pity roar,
Feel to moan, but unlike before
You discover that you'd just a-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.
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,
Others say, "Don't hate nothing at all except a-hatred."
Disillusioned words a-like a-bullets bark,
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 you to hundred-dollar plates,
Goodness hides behind its gates,
Even the president of the United States sometimes a-must have to stand naked.
But, though the rules of the road have been lodged,
It's people's games that you got to dodge,
It's alright, ma, I can make it.
Advertising signs, they con,
Con you into thinking that you're the one
That can do what's a-never been done,
That can win what's a-never been won –
Meantime life outside goes on all around you.
You lose yourself, but then you reappear,
You suddenly find you've got nothing to fear,
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling, distant voice, unclear,
Startles your ears to hear somebody thinks that they really have found you.
A question in your nerves is lit,
Yet you know that there is no answer fit
To satisfy, ensure you not to quit,
Keep it in your mind and don't 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.
Old-lady judges watch people in pairs,
Limited in sex they dare
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 a-most a-bitterly,
For them that think death––death's honesty
Won't fall upon 'em naturally, life sometimes must get lonely.
My eyes collide head-on with stuffed
Graveyards and false goals, I scuff
At pettiness, which plays so rough,
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs,
Kick my legs to crash it off,
Say, "Alright, 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
Gets cut off by the recording.