On the Piano Lesson

Blackman carves the memory

Of his black wife

Sold for Pharaoh’s wife to have the piano he carvin’.

But if she goin’ to play music

She goin’ to play the song that tell the story

Of his black wife’s plight.

Playin’ that story of Egyptland

Where power and fear whip the cotton picker

Who builds pyramids for Pharaoh’s empire.

Playin’ that story of Africaland

Where the AIDS filled penis is the black wife’s plight

And poverty buys guns for children to learn to use.

While Pharaoh slip a diamond on his wife’s finger

And African oil smogs up the Beijing sky.

Playin' that story of a Holy Land

Where walls block the Light

And parched tongues search for Jordan

Still Pharaoh slumps at the piano

His wife banging silent keys

Writing this cacophonous ballad

But Pharaoh's not listening

Playin’ that story of the Southland

Where children live in trash heaps

And U.S. bullets murder bishops.

But don’t you say a word to Pharoah’s wife

She don’t know the piano she plays

Is only made of banana peels.

Playin’ that story here in Freedomland

Blackman carvin’ a new picture here.

His Iraqi son’s face.

Pharaoh sold him for a bomb

So Pharaoh’s wife could play a song she don’t know.