Tuesday’s Tune: Word Game

Tuesday’s Tune// Word Game by Stephen Stills.

Would you knock a man down
If you don’t like the cut of his clothes
Could you put a man away
If you don’t want to hear what he knows
Well, it’s happening right here
People dying of fear by the droves

And I know most of you
Either don’t believe it’s true
Or else you don’t know what to do
Or maybe I’m singing about you
Who knows

It’s incredibly sick, you can feel it
As across the land it flows
Prejudice is slick when it’s a word game
It festers and grows
Move along quick, it furthers one
To have somewhere to go

You can feel it as it’s rumblin’
Let emotions keep a tumblin’
Then as cities start to crumblin’
Mostly empty bellies grumblin’
Here we go

People see somebody different
Fear is the first reaction shown
Then they think they’ve got him licked
The barbaric hunt begins and they move in slow
A human spirit is devoured
The remains left to carrion crow

I was told that life is change
And yet history remains
Does it always stay the same
Do we shrug it off and say
Only God knows

By and by somebody usually goes
Down to the ghetto try and help
But they don’t know why folks treat them cold
And the rich keep getting richer
And the rest of us just keep getting old

You see one must have a mission
In order to be a good Christian
If you don’t you will be missing
High Mass or the evening show

And the well fed masters reap the harvests
Of the polluted seeds they’ve sown
Smug and self-righteous they bitch about people they owe
And you can’t prove them wrong
They’re so God damn sure they know

I have seen these things with my very own eyes
And defended my battered soul
It must be too tough to die
American propaganda, South African lies
Will not force me to take up arms, that’s my enemies’ pride

And I won’t fight by his rules that’s foolishness besides
His ignorance is gonna do him in and nobody’s gonna cry
Because his children they are growing up
With bigots and their silver cups they’re fed up
They might throw up on you

Alright, ooh

Stephen Stills, from his second solo album, Stephen Stills 2, 1971