Letras
I looked upon the book of life
Tracing the lines of face after face
Looking down at their naked feet
Bound in chains, bound in chains
Chains of leather, chains of gold
They knew it was wrong, but they looked away
And paraded them down the colonial streets
And that's how they became enslaved
They came across in the great ships
Mothers separated from their babes
Husbands standing on the auction block
Bound in chains, bound in chains
Sold to toil in plantations in fields of white
Men knew it was wrong, but they looked away
And paraded their brothers through the colonial night
Where they turned their necks to a bitter landscape
Oh, am I not a man and a brother?
Am I not a woman and a sister too?
History sends us such strange messengers
Coming down through time, their arms are laid with
Even stranger fruit as they swing and glade, swing and glade
Hung on ropes of leather, ropes of gold
Swinging in the night while men looked away
Turner and Garrison and Brown and all
And they looked at, they looked at that big ball of light
It was just the, just the sun as a ball, just a ball of light
It was flung up, flung up from the starry firmament
Bright, free, free little stars, where they spun naked
Oh God, we were, we were standing with our children
We were naked and free and God walked within us
And they came on their great ships
And they turned us to look at their bitter landscape
Oh, can't you hear us calling? My people, I speak to you
I, I've burned, I've swung, I've toiled for you and your children
And you stand there, you stand there and look at me with that face
And you burn out your life on crack and sorrowful stories
You feel so sorry for yourself, you're standing in front of
Any promising city, any promising city, smoking crack, crack
That's how you, that's how you repay your ancestors
All those dreams go up in your pipe, up in smoke
And we're, we're, we will be heard