Medley: It's A Hard Life Wherever You Go/Abraham M

(Nancy Griffith)



I am a backseat driver from america

They drive to the left on falls road

And the man at the wheels name is Shamus

We pass a the child on a corner he knows.



And shamus 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

There ain't no place in Belfast for that kid to go.



And it's a hard life, it's a hard life

It's a very hard life, it's a hard life wherever you go

And we poison our children with hatred

And the hard life is all that they know.



--- Instrumental ---



At the dairyline in Chicago

A fat man in front of me

He's 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'll slip to their windows and see him

They'll think that white hood's all they need.



And it's a hard life, it's a hard life

It's a very hard life, it's a hard life wherever you go

And we poison our children with hatred

And the hard life is all that they know.



--- Instrumental ---



I was a child of the sixties

When dreams could be held through tears

With Disney and Cronkite and Martin Luther

And I belived, I believed, I believed.



Now I'm a backseat driver from America

And I'm not at the wheel of control

And I am guilty, I am worn, I am the root of all evil

And I can't drive on the left side of the road.



And it's a hard life, it's a hard life

It's a very hard life, it's a hard life wherever you go

And we poison our children with hatred

And the hard life is all that they know.



And there ain't no place in this world for these kids to go

'Cause it's a hard life wherever you go...



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Abraham, Martin and John

(Richard Holler)



Has anybody here seen my old friend Abraham

Can you tell me where he's gone

He freed a lotta people but it seems the good die young

I just looked around and he's gone.



Has anybody here seen my old friend Martin

Can you tell me where he's gone

He freed a lotta people but it seems the good die young

I just looked around and he's gone.



Has anybody here seen my old friend John

Can you tell me where he's gone

He freed a lotta people but it seems the good die young

I just looked around and he's gone.



Didn't you love the things they stood for

Didn't they try to find some good

In you and me and we'll be free

Someday soon it's gonna be one day.



Has anybody here seen my old friend Bobby

can you tell me where he's gone

I thought I saw him walking up over the hill

With Abraham and Martin and John...