Manhattan Transfer - NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND (ANTES QUE SEJA TARDE) lyrics

[Chuck D (Flavor Flav)]

I came from a place I forgot

I woke up in the parking lot, far from a meal and a cot

On the corner where all the streets got the same name

Maybe my brain's on the brink of (INSANE!)

Pain between the papers while sleepin on the train

This the land of milk and honey (know what I'm sayin?!)

The invisible man times three

Black, down and out - out standin on a corner (no doubt)

Now a nation of homeless sleepin in bus stations

Another win for the pilgrims who said (NO MORE HAITIANS)

As I proceed, someone to feed me is what I need

(Three blocks of dealers tryin to hit me off with some weed)

Yeah, avenues and boulevards hungry as a (FUCKER)

Hope to get a ride from a (TRUCKER - aiyyo man)

Everybody know I ain't no (SUCKER)

Every time I used to drop thirty at the (RUCKER - that's it)

Away from the crazy kids in Generation Wrecked

Dissin pyramids while praisin projects

(Walk past old folks gettin no respect!)

Callin young folks a bunch a no-good rejects

And I walk on

[Chorus: Chuck D]

An eye for an eye, I can't recognize the man in the mirror

Is it I? It is I

Now who this cat I'm lookin at?

Cause I've been waitin so long, to get where I'm goin

An eye for a eye, in this country 'tis of thee

Now how the hell, can I be free

And who this cat I'm lookin at?

Cause I've been lost so long without anybody knowin

[Chuck D (Flavor Flav)]

So I move on (uh-huh) and I walk on (yeah-yeah!)

Past the preachers and the pimps gettin their talk on (SAY WORD?!)

Why do home gotta be where the negative roam

To be or not to be (so I roll alone)

I'm trapped within, this skin and these bones

Amongst temporary kings, on cellular phones

Can I last, as I walk past

Mad cigarette billboards, and malt liquor ads

(Walkin on da bottles and potato chip bags)

Everyone I see got the nerve to brag

Where they from, what they got, and don't own squat

Disrespect where they from and you might get shot [click click BOOM]

Zombies askin me, what the latest bomb be

(You shoulda shot the fuckin sheriff and the fuckin deputy G!)

For okayin the drug trade and lettin it be

But I know prison for me, is an industry

So I walk, heard the best things in life be free

(Didn't God make this land and the air that we breathe)

Not for the homeless, don't give a damn about me

In the mirror somebody else is starin at me

Maybe prison is the skin I'm within

All this time I been sufferin can't fix it with a Bufferin

Plus they said I'll never work in this town again (God damn!)

So I keep on walkin - yeah

[Chorus]

[Chuck D (Flavor Flav)]

Lil' DayDay is Big Day and just did time

Seen him standin (on the unemployment line?!)

Which collided with the line of the health clinic

I seen Crazy Stacy, her ass standin up in it

No more welfare, they cut her Medicaid

(DAMN! My momma used to do her braids)

I keep walkin, so they don't see me

But I doubt if they doin much better than me

So I walk on, never take the planet for granted

I paved the concrete, asphalt and granite

I walked past three brothers, sittin on the porch

With a yard of dirt, and littered with Newports

Talkin how they comin up while they sittin on they ass

As I walk past 'em I'm the target of they laughs

And one said "Let's get him for his fuckin stash"

As I walked fast, past the other yards with grass

Had a little cash, I tried to make it last

From a few deals I made from cleanin windshields

I ran like a (rally) they caught me in the (alley)

Can't get out the ghetto from New York to (Cali)

I thought I had nothin, 'til I felt the knife

And now I ain't even got a life... [echoes]