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

Startles your sleeping ears to hear

That somebody thinks they really found you

A question in your nerves is lit

Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy

Ensure you not to quit to keep it in your mind and not forget

That it is not he, or she, or them, or it that you belong to

But though the masters make the rules

For the wise men and the fools

I got nothing, Ma, to live up to

For 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

Do what they do just 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 then 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 harm nor put fault

On anyone 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 gods, 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