Print

What if you were born thereAnd you knew how things used to be,Watching your father come home each dayFrom the factory?What if you had seen the ships come inAnd you thought it might always be that wayAnd what if you watched that all disappearWhen you awoke one day?What if you knew where your landlord livedOn the other side of the riverIn the resort town where you clean the floors,Would you feel your lips quiver?What if it was your brother who had the nerveTo date a white man's daughter?What if you found him with rope marks on his neckLying in the water?What if you'd been in prison for ten years of your lifeFor the crime of being black and poor?What if every time opportunity knockedIt was a policeman at your door?What if no one you knew had ever been to collegeBut everyone had been to jail?What if you knew those drugs were planted by the cops?Could you feel the cold steel rail?Letras de cancionesWhat if it was yesterday and you were thereAnd you saw the high-speed chaseAnd you watched the cop car hit him, saw him fallSaw the look upon his face?What if you were a witness and you watched the copsKick him in the head?What if he was your friend and you knew him wellAnd you watched him lying dead?What if you had a wake and right there?You could hear the sirens' blareWhat if they called you criminals and yelled into their bullhornsWhile you were blinded by the floodlight's glare?What if someone lit a match and the wind blew the flameAt the abandoned foundry,Hours from the dawn in the darkness of the night?Through the fire, what could you see?What if you were in Benton HarborOn those hot nights in June?Would you have joined your neighbors in the burning of the cop carsBeneath the summer moon?What if you were a city that has been abandoned?Would you just crumple beneath the load?Would you die in silenceOr might you just explode? From Letras Mania