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

Darkness at the break of noon

Shadows even the silver spoon

The handmade blade, the child's balloon

Eclipses both the sun and moon

To understand you know too soon, there is no sense in trying

As pointed fingers, bluff with scorn

As suicide remarks are torn

From the fool's gold mouthpiece the hollow horn

Plays wasted words proves to warn

That he not busy being born is busy dying

Temptation's page flies out the door

You follow, find yourself at war

Watch waterfalls of pity roar

You feel to moan but unlike before

Discover that you'd just be one more person crying

So don't fear if you hear

A foreign sound to your ear

It's alright ma, I'm only sighing

As some warn victory, some downfall

Private reasons great or small

Can be seen in the eyes of those that call

To make all that should be killed to crawl

While others say don't hate nothing at all, except hatred

Disillusioned words like bullets bark

As human gods aim for their mark

Made everything from toy guns that spark

To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark

It's easy to see without looking too far that not much is really sacred

Our teachers teach of evil fates

Preachers preach that knowledge waits

Can lead to hundred dollar plates

Goodness hides behind its gates

But even the president of the United States

Sometimes must have to stand naked

An' all the rules of the road have been lodged

It's only people's games that you got to dodge

And it's alright ma, I can make it

Advertising signs that con you

Into thinking you're the one

That can do what's never been done

That can win what's never been won

Meantime life outside goes on all around you

You lose yourself and reappear

Suddenly find you got nothing to fear

Alone you stand with no one near

When a trembling distant voice, unclear

Startles your sleeping ears to hear

That somebody found you

A question in your nerves is lit

Yet you know there is no answer fit

To satisfy ensure you not to quit

Ensure you not to forget

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

Although the masters make the rules

For the wise men and the fools

I got nothing ma, to live up to

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

Raise what they grow up 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 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 fault nor put fault

On him 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 goals, 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