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

I am a backseat driver from America

They drive to the left on Falls Road

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

If we poison our children with hatred

Then, the hard life is all they’ll ever know

And there ain’t no place in (Belfast) for these kids to go

(Chicago)

(This world)

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 slip to their window and they see him

And they think that white hood’s all they need

I was a child in the sixties

Dreams could be held through TV

With Disney and Cronkite and Martibn Luther

Oh, I believed, I believed, I believed

Now, I am a backstreet driver from America

I am not at the wheel of control

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