Gil Scott-Heron Album

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and
skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.

There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back
after a message about a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.

[No lyrics]

We deal in too many externals, brother.
Always afros, handshakes, and dashikis.

Never can a man build a working structure for black capitalism.
Always does a man read Mao or Fanon.

I think I know you would-be black revolutionaries too well.
Standing on a box on a corner, talking about blowing the white boy away.
That's not where it's at, yet, brother.

Calling this man an Uncle Tom,
And telling this woman to get an afro,
But you won't speak to her if she looks like hell, will you, brother?

Some of us been checking you act out kinda closely.
And by now it's looking kinda shaky, the way you been rushing people with your super-black bag.
Jumping down on brothers with both feet because they are after their B.A.
But you're never around when your B.A. is in danger.
I mean your black ASS.

I think it was a little too easy to forget that you were a negro before Malcolm.
You drove your white girl through the village every Friday night,
While the grass roots stared in envy and drank wine.
Do you remember?

You need get your memory banks organized, brother.
Show that man you call an Uncle Tom just where he is wrong.
Show that woman that you are a sincere black man.

All we need you to do is SHUT UP AND BE BLACK.
Help that woman.
Help that man.
That's what brothers are for, brother.

Poem here says, Comment #1 uh Comment #2 is dynamite but Comment #1 is the one we decided to use here this evening because it makes a comment if you listen closely on what is now being advertised in East Harlem as the Rainbow Conspiracy a combination of the Students For A Democratic Society, the Black Panthers, and the Young Lords and this is my particular comment about that conspiracy, Comment #1.

The time is in the street you know. Us living as we do upside down. And the new word to have is revolution. People don't even want to hear the preacher spill or spiel because God's whole card has been thoroughly piqued. And America is now blood and tears instead of milk and honey. The youngsters who were programmed to continue fucking up woke up one night digging Paul Revere and Nat Turner as the good guys. America stripped for bed and we had not all yet closed our eyes. The signs of Truth were tattooed across our open ended vagina. We learned to our amazement untold tale of scandal. Two long centuries buried in the musty vault, hosed down daily with a gagging perfume. America was a bastard the illegitimate daughter of the mother country whose legs were then spread around the world and a rapist known as freedom, free doom. Democracy, liberty, and justice were revolutionary code names that preceded the bubbling bubbling bubbling bubbling bubbling in the mother country's crotch and behold a baby girl was born, nurtured by slave holders and whitey racists it grew and grew and grew screwing indiscriminately like mother like daughter everything unplagued by her madame mother. The present mocks us, good Black people with keen memories set fire to the bastards who ask us in a whisper to melt and integrate. Young, very young, teeny bopping revolt on weekend young dig by proxy what a mental ass kicking they receive through institutionalized everything and vomit up slogans to stay out of Vietnam. They seek to hide their relationship with the world's prostitute alienating themselves from everything except dirt and money with long hair, grime, and dope to camo-hide the things that cannot be hidden. They become runaway children to walk the streets downtown with everyday Black people sitting on the curb crying because we know that they will go back home with a clear conscience and a college degree. The irony of it all, of course, is when a pale face SDS motherfucker dares look hurt when I tell him to go find his own revolution. He wonders why I tell him that America's revolution will not be the melting pot but the toilet bowl. He is fighting for legalized smoke, or lower voting age, less lip from his generation gap and fucking in the street. Where is my parallel to that? All I want is a good home and a wife and a children and some food to feed them every night. Back goes pale face to basics. Does Little Orphan Annie have a natural? Do Sluggos kings make him a refugee from Mandingo? What does Webster say about soul? I say you silly chipe motherfucker, your great grandfather tied a ball and chain to my balls and bounced me through a cotton field while I lived in an unflushable toilet bowl and now you want me to help you overthrow what? The only Truth that can be delivered to a four year revolutionary with a whole card i.e. skin is this: fuck up what you can in the name of Piggy Wallace, Dickless Nixon, and Spiro Agnew. Leave brother Cleaver and Brother Malcolm alone please. After all is said and done build a new route to China if they'll have you.

Who will survive in America?
Who will survive in America?
Who will survive in America?
Who will survive in America?

This is just like listening
to a conversation being held
by the many people who congregate
on one of the most popular blocks
in the largest area of black America

Did you ever eat cornbread and black eye peas
Or watermelon and mustard greens?
Get high as you can on Saturday night
Go to church on Sunday to set things right

Listen

I seen Miss Blake after Willy yesterday
She'd've killed anybody who got in her way
Hey look I got a TV for a pound on the head
And Jimmy Jean got the best Panamanian Red

No I ain't got on no underclothes
But we all got to get through this gypsy rose
I think Clay got his very good points
You say a trade bag with thirteen joints?

Who cares if LBJ is in town?
Up with Stokely and H. Rap Brown
I don't know if the riots is wrong
But whitey's been kickin' my ass for too long

I was s'posed to baby but they held my pay.
Did you hear what the number was yesterday?
Junkies is all right when they ain't broke
They leaves you alone when they high on dope

Damn, but I wish I could get up and move
Shut up. Hell you know that ain't true.

The Subject Was Faggots
and the quote was "ain't nothin' happenin' but faggots and dope"
Faggots and dope, faggots and faggots and faggots who line dot dot dot dot
Like that, 34th street and 8th avenue
Giggling and grinning and prancing and shit
Trying their best to see to see the misses and misery
and miscellaneous misfits who attend the faggot ball
faggots who have come to ball
faggots who have come to ball
faggots who were balling because they couldn't get their faggots balls
inside the hall
Balling, balling, ball-less faggots
cutie cootie and snoodie faggots
I mean you just had to dig it to dig it
the crowning attraction being the arrival of Ms Brooklyn
looking like a half-back in a mini-skirt
his or hers or it's pectoral or balls
as he or she or it prepared to enter the faggot ball
but sitting on the corner digging all that I did as I did
long long, black limousines a long flowin' evening gowns
had there been no sign on the door that said "faggot ball"
I might have entered, and god only knows just what would've happened

In 1600 I was a darkie
Until 1865, a slave
In 1900 I was a nigger
Or at least, that was my name

In 1960 I was a negro
And then brother Malcom came along
And then some nigger shot Malcom down
But the bitter truth lives on

Martin is dead
With Martin as our leader
We prayed, and marched
And marched, and prayed
Things were changing
Things were getting better
But things were not together

With Malcom as our leader,
We learned
And thought
And thought we had learned
Things were better
Things were changing
But things were not together

And now it is your turn,
We are tired of praying, and marching, and thinking, and learning
Brothers wanna start cutting, and shooting, and stealing, and burning
You are three hundred years ahead in equality
But next summer may be too late
To look back

In 1600 I was a darkie
And until 1865 a slave
In 1900 I was a nigger
Or at least that was my name

In 1960 I was a negro
And then Malcom came along
Yes, but some nigger shot Malcom down
Though the bitter truth lives on

Well now I am a black man
And though I still go second class
Where as once I wanted the white man's love
Now he can kiss my ass

Glad to get high and see the slow motion world.
Just to reach, and touch, the half notes floating.
Worlds spinning orbit quicker than 9/8ths Dave Brubeck.
We come now, frantically searching for Thomas Moore, rainbow villages.
Up on suddenly, Charlie Mingus and our man Abdul Malik,
to add bass, to a bottomless pit of insecurity.

You may be plastic because you never meditate,
about the bottom of glasses, The third side of your universe.

Add on Alice Coltrane and her cosmic strains.
Still no vocal on blue black horizons.

Your plasticity is tested by a formless assault.
The sun can answer questions in tune, to all your sacrifices.
But why would our new jazz age give us no more mind expanding puzzles?

Enter John.

Blow from under, always, and never, so that the morning, the sun,
may scream of brain bending saxophones.

The third world arrives, with Yusef Lateef, and Pharaoh Saunders.
With oboes straining to touch the core of your unknown soul.
Ravi Shankar comes, with strings attached, prepared to stabilize your seventh sense,
Your black rhythm.

Up and down a silly ladder run the notes, without the words.
Words are important for the mind, but the notes are for the soul.
Miles Davis, So what?
Cannonball, Fiddler, Mercy.
Dexter Gordon, One Flight Up.
Donald Byrd, playing Cristo, but what about words?

Would you like to survive on sadness? Call on Ella and Jose Happiness.
Drift with Smokey, Bill Medley, Bobby Taylor, and Otis Redding.
Soul music where frustrations are washed by drums, Nina and Miriam.

Congo, Mongo, Beat me, senseless, bongo, Tonto.
Flash through dream worlds of STP and LSD.
Speed kills and sometimes musics call, is frustrated.
And the black man is confused.

Our speed is our life pace, much too fast, not good.
I beg you to escape, and live, and hear all of the real.
Until a call comes for you to cry elsewhere.
We must all cry, but tell me.

Must our tears be white?

A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Her face and arms began to swell.
(and Whitey's on the moon)
I can't pay no doctor bills.
(but Whitey's on the moon)
Ten years from now I'll be payin' still
While Whitey's on the moon.
You know, the man jus' upped my rent las' night,
'cause Whitey's on the moon.
No hot water, no toilets, no lights,
but Whitey's on the moon.
I wonder why he's uppi' me?
'cause Whitey's on the moon?
Well I wuz already givin' 'im fifty a week
And now Whitey's on the moon.
Taxes takin' my whole damn check,
The junkies make me a nervous wreck,
The price of food is goin' up,
An' as if all that crap wuzn't enough,
A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Her face an' arms began to swell
And Whitey's on the moon.
Was all that money I made las' year
For Whitey on the moon?
How come I ain't got no money here?
Hmm! Whitey's on the moon.
Y'know I jus' about had my fill
Of Whitey on the moon.
I think I'll sen' these doctor bills,
Airmail special

To Whitey on the moon

Standing in the ruins
Of another Black man's life,
or flying through the valley
They're separating day and night.
"I am death," cried the Vulture.
"For the people of the light."

Charon brought his raft
and came from the sea that sails on souls,
And saw the scavenger departing,
taking warm hearts to the cold.
He knew the ghetto was the haven
for the meanest creature ever known.

In a wilderness of heartbreak
and a desert of despair,
Evil's carrion of justice
shrieks a cry of naked terror.
He's taking babies from their momas
and leaving grief beyond compare.

So if you see the Vulture coming,
he's flying circles in your mind,
Remember there is no escaping
for he will follow close behind.
Only promised me a battle,
battle for your soul and mine.

He taking babies from their momas
And he's leaving
Leaving
Leaving
Leaving
Leaving

it was not enough that we were bought and brought to this home as the slave, locked in the bowels of a floating shithouse, watching those we love eaten away by plauge and insanity, flesh falling like strips of bark from a termite-infested tree, bones rotting turning first to brittle ivory then to resin.
that was not enough.
it was not enough that we were chained to leg irons, black on black with a piss stained wall forced to heed nature's call through and inside of tattered rags that strained our privates, and evidently years of slavery did not appease your need to be superior to something like a crazed lion hung up on being the king of his corner of the cage, backs bent under the wieght of being everything and having nothing, minds too like bomerrangs curving back into themselves kicked and carved by the face-straining smiles that saved my life.
that was not enough.
somehow i can not believe that it would be enough for me to melt with you and integrate without the thoughts of rape and murder. i cannot conceive of peace on earth until i have given you a piece of lead or pipe to end your worthless motherfucking exitence. imagine your nightmares of my sneaking into a vieled of satin bedroom and attacking your daughter, wife and mother at once ripping open their bowels sexually like a wishbone. imagine that magnified a million times when you realize that the blinders have been stripped from my eyes and I realize that slavery was no smiling happy-fizzy party. your ancestors raped my foremothers and i will not forget. i will not forget that Yale or Harvard or Princeton or In-Hell because you are on my mind. i see you everytime my woman walks down the street with her ass on her shoulders. i see you everytime i look in the mirror and think about the times that i would pat myself on the back for not being too black afterall. i think of you morning, noon and night and i wonder, "just exactly what in hell is enough?" everytime i see a rope or gun i remember, and to top it all of you ain't through yet. over fifty you have killed in mississippi since 1963. that doesn't even begin to begin all of those you have maimed, hit and run over, blinded, poisoned, starved, or castrated. i hope you do not think that a vote for John Kennedy took you off my shit-list because in the street there will only be black and white. there will be no Democrats, Republicans, Liberals, Conservatives, Moderates, or any other of the rest of that shit you have used to make me forget to hate.
there ain't no enough. there ain't no surrender. there is only plot and plan, move and groove, kill. there is no promise land. there is only the promise. the promise is not vowel until we have been nerve gassed, shot down and murdered, or done some of the same ourselves. look over your shoulder motherfucker, i am coming.

Picture a man of nearly thirty
Who seemed 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.

Many suggestions
And documents written.
Many directions
For the end that was given.
They gave us
Pieces of silver and pieces of gold.
Tell me,
Who'll pay reparations on my soul?

Many fine speeches (oh yeah)
From the White House desk (uh huh)
Written on the cue cards
That were never really there. Yes,
But the heat and the summer were there
And the freezing winter's cold. Now
Tell me,
Who'll pay reparations on my soul?

Call my brother a junkie 'cause he ain't got no job (no job, no job).
Told my old man to leave me when times got hard (so hard).
Told my mother she got to carry me all by herself.
And now that I want to be a man (be a man) who can depend on no one else (oh yeah).
What about the red man
Who met you at the coast?
You never dig sharing;
Always had to have the most.
And what about Mississippi,
The boundary of old?
Tell me,
Who'll pay reparations on my soul?

Call my brother a junkie 'cause he ain't got no job
Told my old man to leave me when times got hard (so hard).
Told my mother she got to carry me all by herself.
Wanna be a man that can depend on no one else (oh yeah).
What about the red man,
Who met you at the coast?
You never dig sharing;
Always had to have the most.
And what about Mississippi,
The boundaries of old?
Tell me,
Who'll pay reparations on my soul?

Many fine speeches (oh yeah)
From the White House desk (uh huh)
Written on the cue cards
That were never really there. Yes,
But the heat and the summer were there
And the freezing winter's cold.
Tell me,
Who'll pay reparations on my soul?
Who'll pay reparations,
‘Cause I don't dig segregation, but I
can't get integration
I got to take it to the United Nations,
Someone to help me away from this nation.
Tell me,
Who'll pay reparations on my soul?

[No lyrics]