Desolation Row Revisited

MARAT/SADE LYRICS
HOMAGE TO MARAT
From "Marat / Sade"
(Adrian Mitchell / Richard Peaslee)
Peter Weiss


Four years after the revolution and the old king's execution
Four years after remember how those courtiers took their final vow
String up every aristocrat
Out with the priests Let them live on their fat
Four years after we started fighting
Marat keeps on with his writing
Four years after the Bastille fell
He still recalls the old battle yell
Down with all of the ruling class
Throw all the generals out on their arse
Good old Marat by your side we'll stand or fall
You're the only one that we can trust at all
Four years he fought and he fought unafraid
Sniffing down traitors by traitors betrayed
Marat in the courtroom Marat underground
Sometimes the otter and sometimes the hound
Fighting all the gentry and fighting every priest
Businessman the bourgeois the military beast
Marat always ready to stifle every scheme
of the sons of the arse licking dying regime
We've got new generals our leaders are new
They sit and they argue and all that they do
Is sell their own colleagues and ride upon their backs
And jail them and break them and give them all the ax
Screaming in language that no one understands
Of the rights that we grabbed with our own bleeding hands
When we wiped out the bosses and stormed through the wall
Of the prison they told us would outlast us all
Marat we're poor
And the poor stay poor
Marat don't make
Us wait anymore
We want our rights and we don't care how
We want our revolution now
Why do they have the gold
Why do they have the power
Why why why
Do they have the friends at the top
Why do they have the jobs at the top
We've got nothing
Always had nothing
Nothing but holes and millions of them
Living in holes dying in holes
Holes in our bellies and holes in our clothes
Marat we're poor
And the poor stay poor
Marat don't make us wait anymore
Poor old Marat they hunt you down
The bloodhounds are sniffing all over the town
Poor old Marat you work til your eyes turn as red as rust
poor old Marat
We trust in you ....

Back of the Bus
Pete Seger?

If you miss me at the back of the bus
You can't find me nowhere
Come on over to the front of the bus
I'll be riding up there

If you miss me on the picket line
You can't find me nowhere
Come on over to the city jail
I'll be rooming over there

If you miss me in the Mississippi River
You can't find me nowhere
Come on over to the swimming pool
I'll be swimming right there

If you miss me in the cotton fields
You can't find me nowhere
Come on over to the courthouse
I'll be voting right there

If you miss me at the back of the bus
You can't find me nowhere
Come on over to the front of the bus
I'll be riding up there

"Abraham, Martin And John"

Has anybody here seen my old friend Abraham?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lot of people,
But it seems the good they die young.
You know, I just looked around and he's gone.

Anybody here seen my old friend John?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lot of people,
But it seems the good they die young.
I just looked around and he's gone.

Anybody here seen my old friend Martin?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lot of people,
But it seems the good they die young.
I just looked 'round and he's gone.

Didn't you love the things that they stood for?
Didn't they try to find some good for you and me?
And we'll be free
Some day soon, and it's a-gonna be one day ...

Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up over the hill,
With Abraham, Martin and John.

"Masters Of War"

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks.

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly.

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain.

You fasten on the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you sit back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud.

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins.

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
That even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do.

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul.

And I hope that you die
And your death will come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand over your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead.

In the tube where I was born
I could have sworn
There was so much to see
There was so little to be
But I was free
World at my command
Through the dots I ran
Looking for a man who looked like me
And now it can be told
I'm a quarter of a century old
But I'm half a century high

In the tube where I was raised
I was amazed
On the pictures I would lean
That went flashing on the screen
Oh, I was dazed
But then my eyes were made
Hypnotized insane
Buried in my brain
In a blinding blaze
And now it can be told
I'm a quarter of a century old
But I'm half a century high

In the tube where I was grown
I was alone
The figure on the floor
The dream behind the door
The sound was low
Ballgames on the street
Disappeared behind my feet
Out of breath my heart would be
To see another show
And now it can be told
I'm a quarter of a century old
But I'm half a century high

In the tube where I was made
I was afraid
Spinning through the space
Another scene, another face
Another shade
Mirror of my mind
On electric wheels of wine
Living on the lines that were displayed
And now it can be told
I'm a quarter of a century old
But I'm half a century high

In the tube where I was fed
I lost my head
I watch the lives they led
Watch them to the end
And then again
An open kind of laugh
I gave all the mind I had
And whenever I was sad
I had my friends
And now it can be told
I'm a quarter of a century old
But I'm half a century high

In the tube where I was killed
I was fulfiled
Such an easy way to win
Talking to my twin
No sign of sin
The sacrifice was small
Fascination was the fall
I was extended by the wall that held me in
And now it can be told
I'm a quarter of a century old
But I'm half a century high

In the tube where I was killed
I was fulfilled
The lies of light would bend
I'd stare until the end
And then again
Faded and the fad
I gave all the mind I had
And whenever I was sad
I had my friends
And now it can be told
I'm a quarter of a century old
But I'm half a century high

In the tube where I was born
I could have sworn
There was so much to see
There was so little to be
But I was free
World at my command
Through the dots I ran
Looking for a man who looked like me
And now it can be told
I'm a quarter of a century old
But I'm half a century high

Half a Century High
Phil Ochs

"Saigon Bride"

Farewell my wistful Saigon bride
I'm going out to stem the tide
A tide that never saw the seas
It flows through jungles, round the trees
Some say it's yellow, some say red
It will not matter when we're dead

How many dead men will it take
To build a dike that will not break?
How many children must we kill
Before we make the waves stand still?

Though miracles come high today
We have the wherewithal to pay
It takes them off the streets you know
To places they would never go alone
It gives them useful trades
The lucky boys are even paid

Men die to build their Pharoah's tombs
And still and still the teeming wombs
How many men to conquer Mars
How many dead to reach the stars?

Farewell my wistful Saigon bride
I'm going out to stem the tide
A tide that never saw the seas
It flows through jungles, round the trees
Some say it's yellow, some say red
It will not matter when we're dead

Joan Baez

The Death Of Emmett Till
WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN

’Twas down in Mississippi not so long ago

When a young boy from Chicago town stepped through a Southern door

This boy’s dreadful tragedy I can still remember well

The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till



Some men they dragged him to a barn and there they beat him up

They said they had a reason, but I can’t remember what

They tortured him and did some things too evil to repeat

There were screaming sounds inside the barn, there was laughing sounds

out on the street



Then they rolled his body down a gulf amidst a bloody red rain

And they threw him in the waters wide to cease his screaming pain

The reason that they killed him there, and I’m sure it ain’t no lie

Was just for the fun of killin’ him and to watch him slowly die



And then to stop the United States of yelling for a trial

Two brothers they confessed that they had killed poor Emmett Till

But on the jury there were men who helped the brothers commit this

awful crime

And so this trial was a mockery, but nobody seemed to mind



I saw the morning papers but I could not bear to see

The smiling brothers walkin’ down the courthouse stairs

For the jury found them innocent and the brothers they went free

While Emmett’s body floats the foam of a Jim Crow southern sea



If you can’t speak out against this kind of thing, a crime that’s so unjust

Your eyes are filled with dead men’s dirt, your mind is filled with dust

Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains, and your blood

it must refuse to flow

For you let this human race fall down so God-awful low!



This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man

That this kind of thing still lives today in that ghost-robed Ku Klux Klan

But if all of us folks that thinks alike, if we gave all we could give

We could make this great land of ours a greater place to live

Copyright © 1963, 1968 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991, 1996 by Special Rider Music

Old Man Trump
Words by Woody Guthrie, Music by Ryan Harvey

I suppose that Old Man Trump knows just how much racial hate
He stirred up in that bloodpot of human hearts
When he drawed that color line
Here at his Beach Haven family project

Beach Haven ain't my home!
No, I just can't pay this rent!
My money's down the drain,
And my soul is badly bent!
Beach Haven is Trump’s Tower
Where no black folks come to roam,
No, no, Old Man Trump!
Old Beach Haven ain't my home!

I'm calling out my welcome to you and your man both
Welcoming you here to Beach Haven
To love in any way you please and to have some kind of a decent place
To have your kids raised up in.

Beach Haven ain't my home!
No, I just can't pay this rent!
My money's down the drain,
And my soul is badly bent!
Beach Haven is Trump’s Tower
Where no black folks come to roam,
No, no, Old Man Trump!
Old Beach Haven ain't my home!

"Everybody Knows"
Leonard Cohen

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you've been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you've been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

And everybody knows that it's now or never
Everybody knows that it's me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah when you've done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows

And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows

And everybody knows that you're in trouble
Everybody knows what you've been through
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
To the beach of Malibu
Everybody knows it's coming apart
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
Before it blows
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Oh everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows

Freedom Blues
Richard Penniman (Little Richard)

I hope that I should live to see,
When every man can know he's free.
Sufferin' from the past.
I make I ought to be sad

I got my duty rock and roll,
Now everybody, everybody, everyone's gotta be free!
Oh...

Now la-la, la-da-da-da.
La-la, la-da da-da.

Mmmm, let's get rid of that old man, hey-ey-ey,
And bring our government up to date.
It may be very hard to do,
Just open your mind, let love come through.

You hear me callin' you my?
Everybody, everybody, everyone's gotta be free!
Oh yes!

La-la, la-da-da-da.
La-la, la-da da-da.

[Bridge]

We did our thing every thing and we paid our dues,
Now let's get rid of these freedom blues.
It may be very hard to do,
Just open your mind, let love come through.

I got my duty rock and roll,
Now everybody, everybody, everyone's gotta be free!
Oh...

La-la, la-da-da-da.
La-la, la-da da-da.
La-la, la-da-da-da.
La-la, la-da da-da.

John Brown's body lies a-mold'ring in the grave
John Brown's body lies a-mold'ring in the grave
John Brown's body lies a-mold'ring in the grave
His soul goes marching on
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
His soul is marching on

He captured Harper's Ferry with his nineteen men so true
He frightened old Virginia till she trembled through and through
They hung him for a traitor, themselves the traitor crew
His soul is marching on
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
His soul is marching on

John Brown died that the slave might be free
John Brown died that the slave might be free
John Brown died that the slave might be free
But his soul is marching on!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
His soul is marching on

The stars above in Heaven are looking kindly down
The stars above in Heaven are looking kindly down
The stars above in Heaven are looking kindly down
On the grave of old John Brown
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
His soul is marching on

John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his back!
John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his back!
John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his back!
His soul's marching on!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
His soul is marching on

His pet lambs will meet him on the way
His pet lambs will meet him on the way
His pet lambs will meet him on the way
They go marching on!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
His soul is marching on

They will hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree!
They will hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree!
They will hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree!
As they march along!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
His soul is marching on

Now, three rousing cheers for the Union
Now, three rousing cheers for the Union
Now, three rousing cheers for the Union
As we are marching on!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
His soul is marching on

"Talkin' Bout A Revolution"
Tracy Chapman

Don't you know
They're talkin' 'bout a revolution
It sounds like a whisper
Don't you know
They're talkin' about a revolution
It sounds like a whisper

While they're standing in the welfare lines
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation
Wasting time in the unemployment lines
Sitting around waiting for a promotion

Don't you know
Talkin' 'bout a revolution
It sounds like a whisper
Poor people gonna rise up
And get their share
Poor people gonna rise up
And take what's theirs

Don't you know
You better run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run
Oh I said you better
Run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run

'Cause finally the tables are starting to turn
Talkin' bout a revolution
Yes, finally the tables are starting to turn
Talkin' bout a revolution, oh no
Talkin' bout a revolution, oh

While they're standing in the welfare lines
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation
Wasting time in the unemployment lines
Sitting around waiting for a promotion

Simple Song of Freedom
Bobby Darin


Come and sing a simple song of freedom
Sing it like you've never sung before
Let it fill the air
Tell the people everywhere
We, the people here, don't want a war

Hey, there, mister black man, can you hear me?
I don't want your diamonds or your game
I just want to be someone known to you as me
And I will bet my life you want the same

Come and sing a simple song of freedom
Sing it like you’ve never sung before
Let it fill the air
Tell the people everywhere
We, the people here, don’t want a war

Seven hundred million are ya list'nin’?
Most of what you read is made of lies
But, speakin’ one to one ain't it everybody's sun
To wake to in the mornin’ when we rise

Come and sing a simple song of freedom
Sing it like you’ve never sung before
Let it fill the air
Tell the people everywhere
We, the people here, don’t want a war

Brother Solzhenitsyn, are you busy?
If not, won't you drop this friend a line
Tell me if the man who is plowin' up your land
Has got the war machine upon his mind?

Come and sing a simple song of freedom
Sing it like you’ve never sung before
Let it fill the air
Tell the people everywhere
We, the people here, don’t want a war

Now, no doubt some folks enjoy doin' battle
Like presidents, prime ministers and kings
So, let's all build them shelves
Where they can fight among themselves
Leave the people be who love to sing

Come and sing a simple song of freedom
Sing it like you’ve never sung before
Let it fill the air
Tell the people everywhere
We, the people here, don’t want a war

I say … let it fill the air …
Tellin’ people everywhere …
We, the people here, don't want a war

Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)


Señor, señor, do you know where we’re headin’?

Lincoln County Road or Armageddon?

Seems like I been down this way before

Is there any truth in that, señor?



Señor, señor, do you know where she is hidin’?

How long are we gonna be ridin’?

How long must I keep my eyes glued to the door?

Will there be any comfort there, señor?



There’s a wicked wind still blowin’ on that upper deck

There’s an iron cross still hangin' down from around her neck

There’s a marchin’ band still playin’ in that vacant lot

Where she held me in her arms one time and said, “Forget me not”



Señor, señor, I can see that painted wagon

I can smell the tail of the dragon

Can’t stand the suspense anymore

Can you tell me who to contact here, señor?



Well, the last thing I remember before I stripped and kneeled

Was that trainload of fools bogged down in a magnetic field

A gypsy with a broken flag and a flashing ring

Said, “Son, this ain’t a dream no more, it’s the real thing”



Señor, señor, you know their hearts is as hard as leather

Well, give me a minute, let me get it together

I just gotta pick myself up off the floor

I’m ready when you are, señor



Señor, señor, let’s disconnect these cables

Overturn these tables

This place don’t make sense to me no more

Can you tell me what we’re waiting for, señor?
Copyright © 1978 by Special Rider Music

"Working Class Hero"
John Lennon

As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
'Til the pain is so big you feel nothing at all

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
'Til you're so ******* crazy you can't follow their rules

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

When they've tortured and scared you for 20 odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function, you're so full of fear

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion, and sex, and T.V.
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still ******* peasants as far as I can see

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

If you want to be a hero well just follow me
If you want to be a hero well just follow me

A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?

Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?

I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains

I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways

I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests

I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans

I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard

And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard

And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall



Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?

Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?

I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it

I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it

I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’

I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’

I saw a white ladder all covered with water

I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken

I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children

And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard

And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall



And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?

And what did you hear, my darling young one?

I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’

Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world

Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’

Heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’

Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’

Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter

Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley

And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard

And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall



Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?

Who did you meet, my darling young one?

I met a young child beside a dead pony

I met a white man who walked a black dog

I met a young woman whose body was burning

I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow

I met one man who was wounded in love

I met another man who was wounded with hatred

And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard

It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall



Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?

Oh, what’ll you do now, my darling young one?

I’m a-goin’ back out ’fore the rain starts a-fallin’

I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest

Where the people are many and their hands are all empty

Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters

Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison

Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden

Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten

Where black is the color, where none is the number

And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it

And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it

Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’

But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’

And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard

It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall
Copyright © 1963 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991 by Special Rider Music

Don't Put it Down
from Hair

Om mane padme om
On mane padme om

Folding the flag means taking care of the nation
Folding the flag is putting it to bed for the night
I fell through a hole in the flag
I'm falling through a hole in the flag, help

Don't put it down
Best one around
Crazy for the red, blue and white
Crazy for the red, blue and white

You look at me
What do you see
Crazy for the white, red and blue
Crazy for the white, red and blue

'Cause I look different
You think, I'm subversive
Crazy for the blue white and red
Crazy for the blue white and red

My heart beats true
For the red white and blue
Crazy for the blue, white and red
Crazy for the blue, white and red

And yellow fringe
Crazy for the blue, white, red and yellow

Cruel War
(version sung by Harry Belafonte)

Oh the cruel war is raging
Your daddy must fight
And I know I will miss you
From morning till night
You cannot go with me
It grieves my heart so
You cannot go with me
Oh no my son no
For your waist is too slender
Your fingers too small
And your cheeks are too tender
To face the cannon-ball
They will give me shiny medals
They'll call "the killing brave"
But I'd rather hold my darling son
Than fill a thousand graves
I will fight through the winter
Through Summer, Spring and Fall
And there's many a man that I will kill
That I never knowed at all
O listen, oh listen to me Johnny
And heed my story well
There's no glory in the killing
Just the agony of hell
Oh the cruel war is raging
Your daddy must fight
And I know I will miss you
From morning till night

As I wondered round the world so lost and angry,
He called me home and reached out for my hand,
He spoke with words that sounded more like music,
The words my heart could finally understand.

He showed me pride and said I could feel better,
But no better than the smallest of the small,
He showed me victories where no one loses,
He showed me the answer for us all.

And the song I sing,
I sing for you, sweet Martin Luther King,
And the song I sing,
I sing for you, sweet Martin Luther King,

And as we walked the people gathered round him,
Open arms the only weapons that they bore,
He wore us into cloth of many colors,
And armed with love he marched us off to war.

And the song I sing,
I sing for you, sweet Martin Luther King,
And the song I sing,
I sing for you, sweet Martin Luther King.

The more he spoke of love the more they feared him,
The more he spoke the truth their lies would grow,
Then suddenly with no good-byes we lost him,
My sweet black prince of peace,
I miss you so

They cut his dreams down thinking they would not flower,
But he planted seeds everywhere he'd gone
So that someday in an endless field of colors,
A million dreams would bloom to carry on.

And the song I sing.
I sing for you, sweet Martin Luther King,
And the song I sing,
I sing for You, sweet Martin Luther King,

And the song I sing,
I sing for you, sweet Martin Luther King,
And the song I sing,
I sing for you, my sweet prince of peace,
My sweet prince of peace
I miss you so

Jake Holmes

"Working Class Hero"

As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
'Til the pain is so big you feel nothing at all

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
'Til you're so ******* crazy you can't follow their rules

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

When they've tortured and scared you for 20 odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function, you're so full of fear

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion, and sex, and T.V.
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still ******* peasants as far as I can see

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

If you want to be a hero well just follow me
If you want to be a hero well just follow me

John Lennon