Even on a quiet day, it is rare when music is not running through my mind. No need to stream music or the radio, it is always there. Maybe it is that way for you, too. New tunes sometimes come by, but they never stay long. Most often it is something I heard long ago, or just yesterday.
This morning it was the music and lyric, “it starts when you’re always afraid, step out of line, the man come and take you away.”
In the minute it took me to find the song on YouTube, I was crushed by the realization that the lyrics apply today as well as they did in 1966. Racism, misogyny, poverty, ignorance, and greed are as rampant now as then. Did anything really change? Does it ever change? Or do generations just wear different clothes, hairstyles, grow old and die feeling satisfied that they made a difference when they didn’t?
The current times expose the fetid underside of the American Dream, of human nature. While it needs to be seen and hopefully engaged, the collective grief is breathtaking.
Political commentary is beyond me. But this has got to stop.
For What It’s Worth
There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
There’s battle lines being drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
We better stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, now, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Shouldn't...but Do 
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