We Beg Your Pardon (Pardon Our Analysis)

We'd like to do an idea for you that was related to the H2OGaTe, Watergate blues

In March of 1973, we wrote the Watergate blues, and some 17 months later, then-President Nixon resigned

But the story didn't end there, so we didn't stop there

We have prepared a sequel, and it's called, and it's called "We Beg Your Pardon America"

We beg your pardon because the pardon you gave this time, was not yours to give

They call it due process and some people are overdue

We beg your pardon America

Somebody said "brother-man gonna break a window, gonna steal a hubcap, gonna smoke a joint, brother man gonna go to jail"

The man who tried to steal America is not in jail

"Get caught with a nickel bag brother-man, get caught with a nickel bag", says the lady on your way to get your hair fixed

"You'll do Big Ben, and Big Ben is time"

But the man who tried to fix America will not do time

Said they're going to slap his wrists, gonna retire him with 850 thousand dollars

And America was "shocked"

America leads the world in shocks

Unfortunately, America does not lead the world in deciphering the cause of shock

850 thousand dollars they said and the people protested and so they saw it like "we'll give him 200 thousand dollars"

Everybody said "OK, that's better"

I'd like to retire with 200 thousand dollars some day

San Quentin not San Clemente

Do not pass go, go directly to jail, do not collect 200 thousand dollars

We beg your pardon America

We beg your pardon because somehow the pardon did not sit correctly

What were - what were the causes for this pardon?

Well now they had "flea bite us"

Rats bite us, no pardon in the ghetto

They had national security, but do you feel secure with the man who tried to steal America back on the streets again?

What are the results of this pardon though? Because remember, when there's causes, there's results and the results is always deeper still

We now have Oatmeal Man

Anytime you find someone in the middle,

Anytime you find someone who is tepid,

Anytime you find someone who is lukewarm,

Anytime you find someone who has been in Congress for 25 years and no one ever heard of him,

You've got Oatmeal Man

Oatmeal Man, straddling uncomfortably, yards and feet of barbed wire

It's hard to live in the middle all the time

Oatmeal Man, the man who said you could fit all of his black friends in the trunk of his car and still have room for the Republican elephant

Oatmeal Man

But there was no crime committed

Oatmeal Man says that "America, in 1975 your president will be a 1913 Ford"

Regressive

Circle up the wagons to defend yourself from nuclear attack

Oatmeal Man, reminiscent of 1964's AuH2O, Gold Water

Thank god he didn't win, but Oatmeal man didn't win

Did you vote for him? I didn't vote for him

But that's the first results, and the second would be the Dred Rockefeller

Doubtlessly being promoted for the job he did at Attica, 43 dead and millions of Americans once again in shock

Doubtlessly being promoted for the job he did on the streets of New York city where the pushers sell the drugs that the government allows in the country, and then they do time

They do life, and death or life, and death behind bars, while William Saxby(?) says he is going to dismiss the Lord & Furlow(?) program

And brother Richard X of Buffalo New York faces 13 hundred and 65 years - did he say one thousand three hundred and sixty five years? - behind bars for participating in Attica

And Rockefeller faces being the Vice President of this country

And all is calm and quiet along the white sands at San Clemente

We beg your pardon America, we beg your pardon once again

Because we found out that seven out of every ten black men behind jail, and most of the men behind jail are black

Seven out of every ten black men never went to the ninth grade

Didn't have 50 dollars and hadn't had 100 for a month when they went to jail

So the poor and the ignorant go to jail while the rich go to San Clemente

We beg your pardon America because we understand now much more deeply than we understood before

But we don't want to take the pardon back, we want to issue some more

Pardon brother Frank Willis, the Watergate security guard, he was only doing his job

Pardon H. Rap Brown, it was only burglary

Pardon Robert Vesco, it was only embezzlement

Pardon Charles Manson, it was only mass murder

And pardon us while we get sick

Because they pardoned William Calley, 22 dead, and America in shock

And we understand all the more deeply, and we beg your pardon

As unemployment spirals toward 7 percent, and it seems like 70 percent in my neighborhood

As unemployment spirals and as we watch cattlemen on TV shoot cows in the head and kick 'em in the graves while millions are starving in the Sahel(?) and Honduras and maybe even next door

We understand all the more deeply as Boston becomes Birmingham becomes Little Rock becomes Selma becomes Philadelphia, Mississippi, becomes yesterday all over again

We understand and we beg your pardon

We beg your pardon America because we have an understanding of karma

What goes around, comes around

And we beg your pardon for all of the lies and all of the people who've been ruined and who look forward to next year because they can't stand to look at this one

We beg your pardon America because the pardon you gave this time was not yours to give

Thank you very much. Thank you very much.