Comin’ on 1981

I cannot go back to your office
I cannot go back to your factory
I cannot go back to your nine to five
Spending all my days bored to death
Waiting…….for evenin to arrive

I cannot go back to your television
I cannot go back to your radio
I cannot go back to your thievin lyin’
So-called newspapers
They are rapers of my mind

For I have caught you lying 
About El Salvador
Like you lied in Vietnam
So many years before
Nobody kills more than you do

I cannot go back to your foreign aid
I cannot go back to your treaties
I cannot go back to your puppet dictators
I hope they get eaten by alligators soon

For I have seen you kidnap millions
From another land
Set them free in poverty
Hang them from a tree
That’s your democracy
And then you talk about hostages

I cannot go back to your senators
I cannot go back to your courts
I cannot go back to your school
You’re designing destruction
And I will not be your tool

For I have seen your ghettoes
And your colonies
I have seen your TV junkies
Don’t let em look out the window
They might see your dirty work

I cannot go back to your peaceful change
I cannot go back to reform
I cannot go back to your civilization
It’s a plantation, your occupation
Is assassination of slaves

For I have seen you kill Black Panthers
King and Malcolm X
And I will see you die
Just like the dinosaur, Tyrannasaurus Rex

SHUT DOWN THE LAB

We don’t want no nuclear bombs
Don’t wanta see them fallin’
Ain’t gonna be no people walkin
Won’t be no babies crawlin’
Ain’t gonna be no fish or fowl
Won’t even be a crab
If we don’t get busy right now and
Shut down the lab

I ain’t gonna tell you no fish story
I think you will agree
That Lawrence Livermore Laboratory
Has got no right to be
Every U.S. nuclear bomb since 1943
Was designed by U.C. Berkeley
For Washington D.C.

            Chorus:
Shut down the lab today
Shut down the lab to stay
Shut it down yesterday
And throw away the key

No more bombs in Berkeley
No more war machine
No more intervention
And no U.S. Marines
No more nuclear warheads
No more nuclear grants
No more nuclear submarines
And no more nuclear plants!

            Chorus

They’re buildin up the bombers
They’re buildin up the draft
They’re buildin puppet juntas
And F-16 aircraft
They plunder and they massacre
They live but they have no heart
People fight them everywhere
And it’s time for us to start

            Chorus

There’s a little village in a little country
And the little people are smiling everyday
There’s a little mayor who will throw a little party|
So get a little tipsy, enjoy your little stay
There’s a lot of sugar, there’s a lot of cotton
Everybody’s happy, and their teeth are rotten
They used to grow their corn, had all that they coul eat
But that was unAmerican, and we like our coffee sweet

 We like our coffee sweet, we like our coke with rum
We stand for liberty, too bad these natives can’t have some
In the little mountains all the little peasants
Have a little army, they’ve grown a little bold
Though they live in squalor and cannot pay the rent
They’re Soviet-inspired, so says the President

We like our country rich, we want the best for our sons
Profits were stable til this yea
 Too bad these natives all have guns

Say goodbye to paradise, the parting is so hard
You wish that you could buy it and keep it in your yard
As you board the airplane, wave a fond farewell
When you meet your family, this tale you will tell

 I like my coffee sweet and my tobacco strong
I cherish my paradise but I fear it’s not mine for long

(1990s rewrite)
I would like you to try to imagine 
A world where people have come to be free 
A world with no kind of colony 
Even though I know  
It don’t sound like the one we come from 
If you wanta get there, gotta start somewhere 
Let’s start right now 

Small children fallin down
Shot in the back by big guns 
From the womb they rise again
The battle has only just begun
Bottom rung tightens up
Top dog won’t lighten up 
It feels like a crossroads up ahead 

     Chorus: 
What do you think the end will be 
What do you think the end’s gonna be 
Let’s go find out, let’s go find out
Let’s go find out 

I would like you to try to imagine 
A world where nobody bombs foreign cities 
A world where nobody lives in slums
Even though I know 
It don’t sound like the one we come from 
If you wanta get there, gotta start somewhere 
Let’s start right now            
 Chorus

F.B.I. agents attacked the Indian land
On with the genocide, that’s what they planned
Two F.B.I. agents ended up dead
But the government continues
To kill the Red Nation

Joe Stuntz, an Indian man
Was killed in the battle
On the Pine Ridge Reservation
No one was charged for this murder
No one ever is, in a concentration camp
Call it what it is

            Chorus:
Let me sing you a true tale
For defending his people this man lands in jail
While all those politicians sit around and cheer
Native people say White Man’s government, no, no
Has got no right, no, no, to judge Peltier

Leaders are a threat, so they took Peltier
Shove him in a prison cell til his last livin year
In the Indian heart they would like to strike fear
Haven’t they learned nothin?
Who started this war, and what for?
The white government has alwayus lied about justice
While the Native people get F.B.I.’d

            Chorus

I was watchin MTV, drinkin wine and eatin brie
When the word came over the wire
There was a panic downtown, everybody was runnin around
And the courthouse was on fire
Rats runnin under floors, people livin out of doors
And the ghetto cop unhooks his safety catch
Boil and bubble, toil and trouble
But I’m just gonna throw my latch
Cause I’ve got a

            Chorus:

Nice car and troubles of my own
And I just ain’t got the time
Somebody else’ll do it, I won’t think about it
Maybe it’ll go away

They’ve got a nuclear reactor on an earthquake fault
And everybody’s makin a scene
And they’re buildin one on top a volcano
But thank God that’s in the Phillippines
There’s stuff in the river that’s bad for your liver
And radiation just won’t quit
They’re gonna make the whole world dirty
Ain’t gonna be no place that’s purty
Ain’t gonna be no place left to shit

            Chorus

I worry about money, I worry about women
I don’t think it’s funny 
I’m sinkin while I’m swimmin
Too many taxes, battle of the sexes
Demonstrations at my door
Some fella got a thousand dollar bed
Some other fella don’t got a loaf of bread
Somebody rich while somebody poor
But I don’t think there’s a real connection
Don’t go takin up no collectionCause I’m just not absolutely sure

And anyway I got a
Chorus

(1990s rewrite)
In San Quentin lived a man 
Full of ideas and action 
Led his people straight and true 
His name it was George Jackson 
He was murdered in coldest blood 
There never was a doubt 
The government finds the finest minds 
And then they snuff them out 
He was never one to lie 
His words were never hollow
He said I know that I will die 
But many more will follow 

His brother came, a teenaged man 
To set the fighters free 
He led the charge with gun in hand 
To stop the slavery 
Jonathan was prepared to die 
Jonathan knew the reasons why 
A people shackled to the ground 
Will never touch the sky 
Manchild from the ghetto 
All of seventeen 
Had more wisdom in his heart 
Than the White House has ever seen 

            Chorus:
I hear changes 
Knocking at the door
They say the future  
Casts a shadow before 

Centuries ago they lived in Africa 
Nowadays you know they die in America 
Terrorized and conquered by 
The whites who call them neighbor 
Like their brothers back at home 
They are the lowest labor 
The country built up rich and strong 
Through murder theft and rape 
But from their fight for justice 
The country can’t escape 

Ever since the slave ships 
Rebellion’s been the word 
Every time they put them down 
And hope that no one heard 
But people take their freedom now 
At such alarming rates 
No longer will they be ripped off 
In these United States 
The emperor is wounded 
He staggers to the right 
The rising of the slaves this time 
Could be the final fight 

            Chorus

(1990s rewrite)
In the dead of night or in broad daylight
Don’t make no difference
Attacks on a back street, riots in the night
Looks like society is looking for a fight
Here come the 90’s

Ku Klux Klan is growin
By another name, but surely we are knowin
Same ones at the bottom, same as it ever was
Same ones got the guns

            Chorus
It’s comin on 1991, 2, 3, 4, 5-6-7-8
It explodes, comes and goes, now and then
Once again it’s gettin late
Turn on the TV, Nazis and SWAT teams at the door
And I have to ask myself, haven’t I seen this all before

Where there is thunder, there will be lightnin
The race to the right is frightenin
Will we use our eyes, or be surprised
Tomorrow

            Chorus