It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) - Live at Philharmonic Hall, New York, NY - October 1964

Darkness at the break of noon
 Shadows even the silver spoon
 The handmade blade, the child's balloon
 Eclipses both the sun and moon
 To understand you know too soon, there is no sense in trying
 As pointed fingers, bluff with scorn
 As suicide remarks are torn
 From the fool's gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
 Plays wasted words proves to warn
 That he not busy being born is busy dying
 Temptation's page flies out the door
 You follow, find yourself at war
 Watch waterfalls of pity roar
 You feel to moan but unlike before
 Discover that you'd just be one more person crying
 So don't fear if you hear
 A foreign sound to your ear
 It's alright ma, I'm only sighing
 As some warn victory, some downfall
 Private reasons great or small
 Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
 To make all that should be killed to crawl
 While others say don't hate nothing at all, except hatred
 Disillusioned words like bullets bark
 As human gods aim for their mark
 Made everything from toy guns that spark
 To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
 It's easy to see without looking too far that not much is really sacred
 Our teachers teach of evil fates
 Preachers preach that knowledge waits
 Can lead to hundred dollar plates
 Goodness hides behind its gates
 But even the president of the United States
 Sometimes must have to stand naked
 An' all the rules of the road have been lodged
 It's only people's games that you got to dodge
 And it's alright ma, I can make it
 Advertising signs that con you
 Into thinking you're the one
 That can do what's never been done
 That can win what's never been won
 Meantime life outside goes on all around you
 You lose yourself and reappear
 Suddenly find you got nothing to fear
 Alone you stand with no one near
 When a trembling distant voice, unclear
 Startles your sleeping ears to hear
 That somebody found you
 A question in your nerves is lit
 Yet you know there is no answer fit
 To satisfy ensure you not to quit
 Ensure you not to forget
 That it is not he or she or them or it that you belong to
 Although the masters make the rules
 For the wise men and the fools
 I got nothing ma, to live up to
 Them that must obey authority
 That they do not respect in any degree
 Who despise their jobs, their destiny
 Speak jealously of them that are free
 Raise what they grow up to be
 Nothing more than something they invest in
 While some on principles baptized
 To strict party platform ties
 Social clubs in drag disguise
 Outsiders they can freely criticize
 Tell nothing except who to idolize and say, "God bless him"
 While one who sings with his tongue on fire
 Gargles in the rat race choir
 Bent out of shape from society's pliers
 Cares not to come up any higher
 But rather get you down in the hole that he's in
 But I mean no fault nor put fault
 On him that lives in a vault
 But it's alright ma, if I can't please him
 Old lady judges watch people in pairs
 Limited in sex, they dare
 To push fake morals, insult and stare
 While money doesn't talk, it swears
 Obscenity, who really cares propaganda, all is phony
 While them that defend what they cannot see
 With a killer's pride, security
 It blows the minds most bitterly
 For them that think death's honesty
 Won't fall upon them naturally
 Life sometimes must get lonely
 My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards
 False goals, I scuff at pettiness which plays so rough
 Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
 Kick my legs to crash it off
 Say, "Okay, I have had enough, what else can you show me?"
 And if my thought dreams could be seen
 They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
 But it's alright ma, it's life, and life only