YouLyric
Sign in
Sign up for free
Somithng in the Way of Things (In Town)
Share
The Roots
What's this song about?
Generate meaning
1
The Roots f/ Amiri Baraka
2
Phrenology
3
Something in the Way of Things (In Town)
4
In town x3
5
Something in the way of things
6
Something that will quit and won't start
7
Something you know but can't stand
8
Can't know get along with
9
Like death
10
Riding on top of the car peering through the windshield for his cue
11
Something entirely fictitious and true
12
That creeps across your path hallowing your evil ways
13
Like they were yourself passing yourself not smiling
14
The dead guy you saw me talking to is your boss
15
I tried to put a spell on him but his spirit is illiterate
16
I know things you know and nothing you don't know
17
'cept I saw something in the way of things
18
Something grinning at me and I wanted to know, was it funny?
19
Was it so funny it followed me down the street
20
Greeting everybody like the good humor man
21
But an they got the taste of good humor but no ice cream
22
It was like dat
23
Me talking across people into the houses
24
And not seeing the beings crowding around me with ice picks
25
You could see them
26
But they looked like important Negroes on the way to your funeral
27
Looked like important jiggaboos on the way to your auction
28
And let them chant the number and use an ivory pointer to count your teeth
29
Remember Steppen Fetchit
30
Remember Steppen Fetchit how we laughed
31
An all your Sunday school images giving flesh and giggling
32
With the ice pick high off his head
33
Made ya laugh anyway
34
I can see something in the way of our selves
35
I can see something in the way of our selves
36
That's why I say the things I do, you know it
37
But its something else to you
38
Like that job
39
This morning when you got there and it was quiet
40
And the machines were yearning soft behind you
41
Yearning for that nigga to come and give up his life
42
Standin' there bein' dissed and broke and troubled
43
My mistake is I kept sayin' "that was proof that God didn't exist"
44
And you told me, "nah, it was proof that the devil do"
45
But still, its like I see something I hear things
46
I saw words in the white boy's lying rag
47
said he was gonna die poor and frustrated
48
That them dreams walk which you 'cross town
49
S'gonna die from over work
50
There's garbage on the street that's tellin' you you ain't shit
51
And you almost believe it
52
Broke and mistaken all the time
53
You know some of the words but they ain't the right ones
54
Your cable back on but ain't nothin' you can see
55
But I see something in the way of things
56
Something to make us stumble
57
Something get us drunk from noise and addicted to sadness
58
I see something and feel something stalking us
59
Like and ugly thing floating at our back calling us names
60
You see it and hear it too
61
But you say it got a right to exist just like you and if God made it
62
But then we got to argue
63
And the light gon' come down around us
64
Even though we remember where the (light or mic??) is
65
Remember the Negro squinting at us through the cage
66
You seen what I see too?
67
The smile that ain't a smile but teeth flying against our necks
68
You see something too but can't call its name
69
Ain't it too bad y'all said
70
Ain't it too bad, such a nice boy always kind to his motha
71
Always say good morning to everybody on his way to work
72
But that last time before he got locked up and hurt, real bad
73
I seen him walkin' toward his house and he wasn't smiling
74
And he didn't even say hello
75
But I knew he'd seen something
76
Something in the way of things that it worked on him like it do in will
77
And he kept marching faster and faster away from us
78
And never even muttered a word
79
Then the next day he was gone
80
You wanna know what
81
You wanna know what I'm talkin' about
82
Sayin' "I seen something in the way of things"
83
And how the boys face looked that day just before they took him away
84
The is? in that face and remember now, remember all them other faces
85
And all the many places you've seen him or the sister with his child
86
Wandering up the street
87
Remember what you seen in your own mirror and didn't for a second recognize
88
The face, your own face
89
Straining to get out from behind the glass
90
Open your mouth like you was gon' say somethin'
91
Close your eyes and remember what you saw and what it made you feel like
92
Now, don't you see something else
93
Something cold and ugly
94
Not invisible but blended with the shadow criss-crossing the old man
95
Squatting by the drug store at the corner
96
With is head resting uneasily on his folded arms
97
And the boy that smiled and the girl he went with
98
And in my eyes too
99
A waving craziness splitting them into the jet stream of a black bird
100
Wit his ass on fire
101
Or the solomNOTness of where we go to know we gonna be happy
102
I seen something
103
I SEEN something
104
And you seen it too
105
You seen it too
106
You just can't call it's name name name name name name name
The Dead South - In Hell I'll Be In Good...
199 views
0 meanings
Go Pro
Unlimited meanings ยท Priority generation
Upgrade
