Time We Learned to Listen!

Time We Learned to Listen!

Oh, it’s time, time, time, time we learned to listen,
really, really listen, to the things they’re really saying,
they somehow really think we want to hear.
With loud, loud voices, they’re out there proclaiming,
they will be our leaders,
and will lead us by our noses to free lunches with less taxes,
for the rich whose load we bear.

Yes, they’d buy the king of Memphis and his music for a song,
But his soul rests in the bottomlands where we
labor all night long,
While the voices that love him rock and roll through the night,
Set our hearts on fire, lead us to the morning light.
Oh yeah, set our hearts on fire, rock and rollin' thru the night.

Yes, we delinked human rights from the right to cheaper labor,
and we shipped our jobs to China where the
Tien-an-men survivors
labor hard to make computers for a down-sized Johnny Paycheck,
payin taxes for the bail-out of the
banks who backed the brokers
with the billions we broke our backs to save.

They’ve worked so very hard to make it all so very legal,
drainin' bank accounts and pensions and
repealin Glass-Stegall,
they're searchin' all our pockets for their next pot of gold,
while the rest of us are workin
til were really, really, really, really, really, really old.

Chorus.

They tried to distract us from how they’d build their wealth,
so they drummed up some wars they claimed
we’d win all by ourselves
And it ain’t their own children they put in warfare’s way
Any more than they did themselves in nineteen-sixty-eight,
with the millions who fought in Viet Nam.

The middle class’ shoulders are proppin’ up the rich,
while the homeless and the unemployed
are campin’ in the ditch.
Our jails are overcrowded, prison stocks are on the fly.
Lock us up! Lock us up! Before we occupy!

Chorus.

And it's time we looked more closely at the things they're really
doin' while they're doin' all those things they say
we really want to do;
With loud voices they're proclaimin' they can be our heroes
and will save us from our demons
of free lunches for poor children
with less taxes for the rich whose load we bear.

Yes, they’d buy the king of Memphis and his music for a song,
But his soul rests in the bottomlands where we
labor all night long,
While the voices that love him rock and roll through the night,
Set our hearts on fire, lead us to the morning light.
Oh yeah, set our hearts on fire, rock and rollin' thru the night.

Copyright 2012 Chick Westover, More Than Grits (ASCAP)