Dignity

Wise man lookin' in a blade of grass
 Young man lookin' in shadows that pass
 Poor man lookin' through painted glass
 Fat man lookin' in a blade of steel
 Thin man lookin' at his last meal
 Hollow man lookin' in a cottonfield
 For dignity
 Drinkin' man listens to the voice he hears
 In a crowded room full of covered-up mirrors
 Lookin' into the lost forgotten years
 For dignity
 I went down where the vultures feed
 Would have got deeper, but there wasn't any need
 I heard the tongues of angels and the tongues of man
 Wasn't any difference to me
 Sick man lookin' for the doctor's cure
 Lookin' at his hands for the lines that were
 Into every masterpiece of literature
 Blind man breakin' out of a trance
 Puts both hands in the pockets of chance
 Hopin' to find one circumstance
 Of dignity
 Footprints runnin' across silver sand
 Steps goin' down into tatoo land
 Met the sons of darkness and the sons of light
 In the border towns of despair
 No place to fade, I got no coat
 I'm on the rolling river in a jerkin' boat
 Trying to read a note somebody wrote
 Englishman stranded in the blackheart wind
 Combin' his hair back, his future looks thin
 Bites the bullet and looks within
 For dignity
 Someone showed me a picture and I just laughed
 Dignity never been photographed
 I went into the red, I went into the black
 Into the valley of dry-bone dreams
 So many roads, so much at stake
 So many dead ends, I'm at the edge of a lake
 Sometimes I wonder what it's gonna take
 To find dignity
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