Artifacts From The Contemporary Culture
Scott, Foresman and Company, Glenview, IL
1970
ISBN –
322 pp, hardcover, 22 x 22 cm
English
Contains Frank Zappa's song 'Trouble Every Day' with different lyrics from 5 versions in killuglyradio.com.
Well I'm about to get sick.
I was watchin' my T.V.
Just been checkin' out the news
That my eyeballs cannot see.
I've been sayin' everyday's a rotten mess.
And when it's gonna change is anybody's guess.
So I'm watchin' and a-waitin' and hopin' for the best.
You think I go astray when I hear them say
There is no other way than trouble comin' everyday.
Wednesday, I watched the riot.
I see cops out on the street,
Watchin' throwin' rocks and stuff and chokin' in the heat.
Listen to reports about the whiskey passin' round,
Seeing smoke and fire and the market burnin' down,
Watchin' while everybody on your street will take a turn.
They're stampin', mashin', crashin', bashin', bustin,' baby burn.
You can cool it, you can eat it, cause baby I don't need it.
Take your T.V. set and eat it.
All that phony stuff on sports
And all the unconfirmed reports.
And I watched that rotten box until my head began to hurt.
I've been checkin' out the way newsmen get the dirt before the guy on channel so and so If some woman driver gets machine gunned from the seat,
They say some joke about a Brownie,
And you see it all complete.
No way to delay that trouble comin' everyday.
And you know something people,
I'm not black, but there is a whole lot of times I wish I could say I'm not white.
When I see the fires burnin' and the lethal people turnin'
All the merchants and the shops who used to sell their brooms and mops
And every household item.
Watch 'em hard to turn and bite 'em.
And they say it served them right because a few of them are white.
It's the same across the nation,
Black and white discrimination
And the other you-can't-understand-me
And the other jazz they hand me
In the papers and T.V. and all that mass stupidity.
It seems to grow more everyday when you hear some nit-wit say
He must go and do you in for the color of your skin
Just don't appeal to him
No matter if it's black or white,
'Cause he's out for blood tonight.
You know we got to sit around at home and watch this thing begin,
And I bet there won't be many alive to see it really end.
'Cause the fire in the street ain't like the fire in the heart And the eyes of all those people
Sayin', Don't you know that this could start
On any street of any town, in any state of any clown
Who decides that now's the time to fight
For some ideal that's "right."
And if a million more agree there ain't no great society
That applies to you and me, and our country isn't free.
And the law refuses to see
That all you'll ever be
Is a lousy janitor
Unless your brother owns the store.
You know, there are five in every four
Who are poor and nothing more.
So watch the rats go 'cross the floor,
And make up songs 'bout bein' poor.