I am a back-seat driver from America
They drive to the left on Falls Road
The man at the wheel's name is Seamus
We pass a child on the corner he knows
And Seamus 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:
and there ain't no place on Belfast for that kid to go"
***It's a hard life, It's a hard life, It's a very hard life
It's a hard life wherever you go***
If we poison our children with hatred
Then the hard life is all that they'll know
A cafeteria line in Chicago
The fat man in front of me
Is 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 window and they'll see him
And they'll think that white hood's all they need
If I'd been a child in the sixties
When dreams could be held through TV
With Disney, and Cronkite, and Martin Luther
Oh, I'd believe, I'd believe, I'd believe
Now, I am the back-seat driver from America
And I am not at the wheel of control
I am guilty, I am war and I am the root of all evil
Lord, and I can't drive on the left side of the road