It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) - Live at LA Forum, Inglewood, CA - February 1974

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 tryin'

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn

Suicide remarks are torn

And the fools gold mouthpiece

The hollow horn plays wasted words proved 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

You discover that you'd just be one more person crying

So don't fear if you hear

A foreign sound in your ear

It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing

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 marks

To make everything from toy guns that sparks

To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark

Easy to see without looking too far that not much is really sacred

While preachers preach of evil fates

Teachers teach that knowledge waits

Can lead to 100 dollar plates

Goodness hides behind its gates

But even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked

An' though the rules of the road have been lodged

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

But 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 loose yourself, you reappear

You suddenly find you got nothing to fear

Alone you stand without nobody near

When a trembling distant voice, unclear

Startles your sleeping ears to hear, someone thinks they really found you

A question in your nerves is lit

Yet you know there is no answer fit

To satisfy, insure 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

Although the masters make the rules

For the wise men and the fools

I got nothing more to live up to

Old lady judges, watch people in pairs

Limited in sex, they dare to push fake morals, insult and stare

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 alright, I have had enough

What else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could been seen

They'd probably put my head in a guillotine

But it's alright, Ma, it's life and life only