Paint It Black

[Spoken, Gil Scott-Heron]

Picture a man of nearly thirty

Who seems twice as old, with clothes torn and dirty

Give him a job shining shoes

Or cleaning out toilets with bus station crews

Give him six children with nothing to eat

Expose them to life on a ghetto street

Tie an old rag around his wife's head

And have her pregnant and lying in bed

Stuff them all in a Harlem house

And then tell them how bad things are down South