Know, you winds that blow your courseDown the verdant valleysThat somewhere you mus, perforceKiss the brow of Alice

Seen my lady Home las’ nightJump back honey Jump back

We wear the mask that grins and lies,it hides our cheeks and shades our eyesThis debt we pay to human guileWith torn and bleeding hearts we smile

I know what the caged bird feels alas!

I am the darker brotherThey send me to eat in the kitchenWhen company comes,But I laugh

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were youngI built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleepI looked upon the Nile and raised pyramids above it

De railroad Bridges A sad song in the air De railroad Bridges A sad song in the air

I play it cool And dig all jiveThats the reasonI stay alive

I doubt not God is good, well meaning, kindAnd did he stoop to quibble could tell whyThe little buried mole continues blind

Now I was eight and very smallAnd he was no whit biggerAnd so I smiled, but he poked outHis tongue, and called me Ni**er

Down on lenox avenue the other nightBy the pale dull pallor of an old gas lightHe did a lazy swayHe did a lazy sway

GOod morning, daddyAin’t you heard The boogie-woogie rumbleof a dream deferred

For my people everywhere singing their slave songs repeatedly

John Cabot out of Wilma once a Wycliffeall whitebluerose below his golden hairwrapped lightly in right linen and right wool

WE real coolwe left schoolwe lurk latewe strike straight

I am inside someone who hate meI look out from his eyessmell what fouled tunes come into his breathLove his wretched women

Who are you listening to me are you white or blackor does that have anything to do with it

I was on my way to see my women but the law said i was on my way thru a red light red light red lightand if you saw my womenyou could understand

A glove left in the grass at the little league fieldis all i knew of loss

The creators my homey so I’m never ShortHe lets me knowWhen to chill in the park

SlaveAmerica is whereI became an animal.America is where i became a ni**er