Lives In The Balance

Daughter of a woman who comes and goes
Candy
Daughter of a man she barely knows
Candy
All grown up about the things
People know to do
How to take a love and tear it in two
No no no that isn't how it's gonna be
For candy

She wants to be in love
But she doesn't know why
Candy
You think she's a child
Look at her now
My my candy

Step by step this is her debut
Looking for love that's made to stay true
Step by step she' looking for more than i see
Candy

Candy
You know what your love is worth
It's a good thing baby
Candy
If you're looking for a real love
It's a ghost town
Candy

Step by step this is her debut
Looking for love that's made to stay true
Step by step she' looking for more than i see
Candy

As if i really didn't understand
That i was just another part of their plan
I went off looking for the promise
Believing in the motherland
And from the comfort of a dreamer's bed
And the safety of my own head
I went on speaking of the future
While other people fought and bled
The kid i was when i first left home
Was looking for his freedom and a life of his own
But the freedom that he found wasn't quite as sweet
When the truth was known
I have prayed for america
I was made for america
It's in my blood and in my bones
By the dawn's early light
By all i know is right
We're going to reap what we have sown

As if freedom was a question of might
As if loyalty was black and white
You hear people say it all the time-
"my country wrong or right"
I want to know what that's got to do
With what it takes to find out what's true
With everyone from the president on down
Trying to keep it from you

The thing i wonder about the dads and moms
Who send their sons to the vietnams
Will they really think their way of life
Has been protected as the next war comes?
I have prayed for america
I was made for america
Her shining dream plays in my mind
By the rockets red glare
A generation's blank stare
We better wake her up this time

The kid i was when i first left home
Was looking for his freedom and a life of his own
But the freedom that he found wasn't quite as sweet
When the truth was known
I have prayed for america
I was made for america
I can't let go till she comes around
Until the land of the free
Is awake and can see
And until her conscience has been found

Papa hit him, mama kissed him
Made him go to catechism
With the sisters in their black and white
And all the time those city streets
Were teaching him another kind of wisdom
When to run and when to fight
Up at the playground after school
Listening to tales of the prison system
And those lawless avenues

Dawn on a half darkened street
A child's footsteps repeat
And something there turns them
Down those lawless avenues

Silent joe went down so bad
He was the strongest fighter the avenues had
Stabbed in the chest--he went down swinging
Someone from some other part of town
No one even seen it coming down
And you don't hear no church bells ringing
And in the violent night the police light
Sweeps across the lots and the yards
Following those lawless avenues

Down on a half darkened street
Armies advance and retreat
And struggle to take control
From those lawless avenues

Manuelito's sister rosa
Ran away with a surfer from hermosa
Manuelito, cuida a rosa,
Hay mira como estan las cosas!
(manuelito take care of rosa
--look at how things are)

But who could blame her after she saw
Every boy die who could have gotten close to her
Rosa es joven u solo quiere
Ver la belleza del mundo
(rosa is young and only wants
To see the beauty of the world)

Manuel said--
"you gotta fight for what you want in this life"
Just before they shipped him overseas to 'nam
Otra guerra sin razon
Otra guerra sin fin, sin honor
(another war without reason,
Another war without end, without honor)

And she was fighting to understand
When they shipped manuelito's body home
All she heard was one more shot
Echoing down lawless avenues

Hoy amigo, tal igual como ayer,
La lucha en el barrio no cambia
Nuestros hijos son los que han de crecer
Por ley de la calle, viviendo entre abrazos
Y chingazos
(today my friend, just like yesterday,
The struggle in the barrio doesn't change.
Our children are the ones to grow up
By the law of the street
Living between hugs and blows)

Down on a half darkened street
Fathers' and sons' lives repeat
And something there turns them
Down those lawless avenues

En el calor de la calle
(in the heat of the street)
Buscan valor en la calle
(looking for valor in the street)
Hasta final de la calle
(till the end of the street)

I've been waiting for something to happen
For a week or a month or a year
With the blood in the ink of the headlines
And the sound of the crowd in my ear
You might ask what it takes to remember
When you know that you've seen it before
Where a government lies to a people
And a country is drifting to war

And there's a shadow on the faces
Of the men who send the guns
To the wars that are fought in places
Where their business interest runs

On the radio talk shows and the t.v.
You hear one thing again and again
How the u.s.a. stands for freedom
And we come to the aid of a friend
But who are the ones that we call our friends--
These governments killing their own?
Or the people who finally can't take any more
And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone
There are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire

There's a shadow on the faces
Of the men who fan the flames
Of the wars that are fought in places
Where we can't even say the names

They sell us the president the same way
They sell us our clothes and our cars
They sell us every thing from youth to religion
The same time they sell us our wars
I want to know who the men in the shadows are
I want to hear somebody asking them why
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But they're never the ones to fight or to die
And there are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire