🎵 Comment #1 // by Gil Scott-Heron

39 ContributorsComment #1 Lyrics In a 1970 spoken-word poem off his debut album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, musician Gil Scott-Heron takes aim at the (predominantly white) student movement and its claim to represent “radical” change. He… Read More  Poem here says, "Comment #1" Uh, "Comment #2" is dynamite But "Comment #1" is the one we decided To use here this evening Because it makes a comment if you listen Closely on what is now being advertised In East Harlem as the "Rainbow Conspiracy" – A combination of The Students For A Democratic Society,  The Black Panthers, and the Young Lords And this is my particular comment about that conspiracy "Comment #1": The time is in the street, you know Us living as we do, upside down And the new word to have is "Revolution" People don't even want to hear the preacher spill or spiel Because God's hole card has been thoroughly piqued And America is now blood and tears, instead of milk and honey The youngsters who were programmed to continue fucking up Woke up one night digging Paul Revere and Nat Turner as the good guys America stripped for bed and we had not all yet closed our eyes The signs of Truth were tattooed across her often-entered vagina We learned, to our amazement, the untold tale of scandal Two long centuries buried in a musty vault Hosed down daily with a gagging perfume America was a bastard, The illegitimate daughter of the Mother country Whose legs were then spread around the world And a rapist, known as Freedom – "Free Doom" Democracy, Liberty, and Justice Were revolutionary code names that preceded The bubbling, bubbling, bubbling, bubbling, bubbling In the Mother country's crotch And, behold! A baby girl was born Nurtured by slave-holders and whitey racists It grew and grew and grew! Screwing indiscriminately Like mother, like daughter Everything unplagued by her madame Mother The present mocks us Good Black people, with keen memories, set fire to the bastards Who ask us in a whisper to melt and integrate Young, very young, teeny-bopping revolt-on-weekend young Dig by proxy what a mental ass-kicking they receive Through institutionalized everything And vomit up slogans to stay out of Vietnam They seek to hide their relationship with the world's prostitute Alienating themselves from everything except dirt and money With long hair, grime, and dope To camo-hide the things that cannot be hidden They become runaway children To walk the streets downtown With everyday Black people sitting on the curb, crying Because we know that they will go back home With a clear conscience and a college degree The irony of it all, of course Is when a pale face S.D.S. motherfucker dares look hurt When I tell him to go find his own revolution He wonders why I tell him That America's revolution will not be the melting pot, but the toilet bowl He is fighting for legalized smoke, or lower voting age Less lip from his generation gap, and fucking in the street Where is my parallel to that? All I want is a good home, and a wife, and a children And some food to feed them every night Back goes pale-face to basics Does Little Orphan Annie have a natural? Do Sluggo's kinks make him a refugee from Mandingo? What does Webster's say about soul? I say – you silly trite motherfucker, your great grandfather Tied a ball and chain to my balls And bounced me through a cotton field While I lived in an unflushable toilet bowl And now you want me to help you overthrow what?! The only Truth that can be delivered to a four year revolutionary With a hole card, i.e. skin, is this: "Fuck up what you can, in the name of Piggy Wallace, Dickless Nixon, and Spiro Agnew Leave Brother Cleaver and Brother Malcolm alone, please After all is said and done, build a new route to China, if they'll have you" Who will survive in America? Who will survive in America? Who will survive in America? Who will survive in America?