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Somithng in the Way of Things (In Town)
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The Roots
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The Roots f/ Amiri Baraka
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Phrenology
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Something in the Way of Things (In Town)
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In town x3
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Something in the way of things
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Something that will quit and won't start
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Something you know but can't stand
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Can't know get along with
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Like death
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Riding on top of the car peering through the windshield for his cue
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Something entirely fictitious and true
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That creeps across your path hallowing your evil ways
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Like they were yourself passing yourself not smiling
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The dead guy you saw me talking to is your boss
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I tried to put a spell on him but his spirit is illiterate
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I know things you know and nothing you don't know
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'cept I saw something in the way of things
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Something grinning at me and I wanted to know, was it funny?
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Was it so funny it followed me down the street
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Greeting everybody like the good humor man
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But an they got the taste of good humor but no ice cream
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It was like dat
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Me talking across people into the houses
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And not seeing the beings crowding around me with ice picks
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You could see them
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But they looked like important Negroes on the way to your funeral
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Looked like important jiggaboos on the way to your auction
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And let them chant the number and use an ivory pointer to count your teeth
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Remember Steppen Fetchit
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Remember Steppen Fetchit how we laughed
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An all your Sunday school images giving flesh and giggling
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With the ice pick high off his head
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Made ya laugh anyway
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I can see something in the way of our selves
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I can see something in the way of our selves
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That's why I say the things I do, you know it
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But its something else to you
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Like that job
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This morning when you got there and it was quiet
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And the machines were yearning soft behind you
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Yearning for that nigga to come and give up his life
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Standin' there bein' dissed and broke and troubled
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My mistake is I kept sayin' "that was proof that God didn't exist"
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And you told me, "nah, it was proof that the devil do"
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But still, its like I see something I hear things
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I saw words in the white boy's lying rag
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said he was gonna die poor and frustrated
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That them dreams walk which you 'cross town
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S'gonna die from over work
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There's garbage on the street that's tellin' you you ain't shit
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And you almost believe it
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Broke and mistaken all the time
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You know some of the words but they ain't the right ones
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Your cable back on but ain't nothin' you can see
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But I see something in the way of things
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Something to make us stumble
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Something get us drunk from noise and addicted to sadness
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I see something and feel something stalking us
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Like and ugly thing floating at our back calling us names
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You see it and hear it too
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But you say it got a right to exist just like you and if God made it
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But then we got to argue
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And the light gon' come down around us
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Even though we remember where the (light or mic??) is
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Remember the Negro squinting at us through the cage
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You seen what I see too?
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The smile that ain't a smile but teeth flying against our necks
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You see something too but can't call its name
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Ain't it too bad y'all said
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Ain't it too bad, such a nice boy always kind to his motha
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Always say good morning to everybody on his way to work
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But that last time before he got locked up and hurt, real bad
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I seen him walkin' toward his house and he wasn't smiling
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And he didn't even say hello
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But I knew he'd seen something
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Something in the way of things that it worked on him like it do in will
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And he kept marching faster and faster away from us
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And never even muttered a word
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Then the next day he was gone
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You wanna know what
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You wanna know what I'm talkin' about
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Sayin' "I seen something in the way of things"
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And how the boys face looked that day just before they took him away
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The is? in that face and remember now, remember all them other faces
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And all the many places you've seen him or the sister with his child
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Wandering up the street
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Remember what you seen in your own mirror and didn't for a second recognize
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The face, your own face
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Straining to get out from behind the glass
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Open your mouth like you was gon' say somethin'
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Close your eyes and remember what you saw and what it made you feel like
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Now, don't you see something else
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Something cold and ugly
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Not invisible but blended with the shadow criss-crossing the old man
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Squatting by the drug store at the corner
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With is head resting uneasily on his folded arms
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And the boy that smiled and the girl he went with
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And in my eyes too
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A waving craziness splitting them into the jet stream of a black bird
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Wit his ass on fire
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Or the solomNOTness of where we go to know we gonna be happy
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I seen something
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I SEEN something
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And you seen it too
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You seen it too
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You just can't call it's name name name name name name name
The Dead South - In Hell I'll Be In Good...
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