Five Years

Pushing through the market square, so many mothers sighing

News had just come over, we had five years left to cry in

News guy wept and told us, earth was really dying

Cried so much his face was wet, then I knew he was not lying

I heard telephones, opera house, favourite melodies

I saw boys, toys electric irons and T.V.'s

My brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare

I had to cram so many things to store everything in there

And all the fat-skinny people, and all the tall-short people

And all the nobody people, and all the somebody people

I never thought I'd need so many people

A girl my age went off her head, hit some tiny children

If the black hadn't a-pulled her off, I think she would have killed them

A soldier with a broken arm, fixed his stare to the wheels of a Cadillac

A cop knelt and kissed the feet of a priest, and a queer threw up at the sight of that

I think I saw you in an ice-cream parlour, drinking milk shakes cold and long

Smiling and waving and looking so fine, don't think

You knew you were in this song

And it was cold and it rained so I felt like an actor

And I thought of Ma and I wanted to get back there

Your face, your race, the way that you talk

I kiss you, you're beautiful, I want you to walk

We've got five years, stuck on my eyes

We've got five years, what a surprise

We've got five years, my brain hurts a lot

We've got five years, that's all we've got