It's a Hard Life Wherever You Go / Abraham, Martin And John

I am a backseat driver from America

We 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

'Cause 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

Cafeteria line in Chicago

The fat man in front of me

Is calling black people trash to his children

And he's the only trash here I see

And I am thinking this man wears a white hood

In the night when his children should sleep

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

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

'Cause 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

I was a child in the Sixties

When dreams could be held through T.V

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, and I am the root of all evil

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

'Cause 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 those kids to go

'Cause it's a hard life wherever you go