Nanci Griffith - It's A Hard Life Wherever You Go lyrics

I am a backseat driver from America

They drive to the left on Falls Road

And the man at the wheel's name is Seamus

We pass a child on the corner he knows

And Seamus says: "Now, what chance has that kid got?"

And I say from the back: "I don't know"

He says: "There's barbed wire at all of these exits

And there ain't no place in Belfast for that kid to go"

It's a hard life, it's a hard life, it's a very hard life

It's a hard life wherever you go

And if we poison our children with hatred

Then the hard life is all that they'll know

And there ain't no place in Belfast for that kid to go

A cafeteria line in Chicago

The fat man in front of me

Is calling black people trash to his children

He's the only trash here I see

And I'm thinking this man wears a white hood

In the night when his children should sleep

But they'll slip to their window and they'll see him

And they'll think that white hood's all they need

It's a hard life, it's a hard life, it's a very hard life

It's a hard life wherever you go

And if we poison our children with hatred

Then the hard life is all that they'll know

And there ain't no place in Chicago for those kids to go

I was a child in the sixties

Dreams could be held through TV

With Disney, and Cronkite, and Martin Luther

And I believed, I believed, I believed

Now, I am the backseat driver from America

And I am not at the wheel of control

And I am guilty, I am war, I am the root of all evil

Lord, and I can't drive on the left side of the road

It's a hard life, it's a hard life, it's a very hard life

It's a hard life wherever you go

And if we poison our children with hatred

Then the hard life is all that they'll know

And there ain't no place in this world for these kids to go

It's a hard life wherever you go