| My father can no longer speak
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| Something about pneumonia
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| Something in his brain
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| Something about swinging low sweet chariots
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| Laying there in Vietnam
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| I got war on my back get it off get it off
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| I got war on my back get it off get it off
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| Gave me that ease
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| He gave me all this heroin to sell
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| Help me poison the community
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| I came home all blown up
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| I got death on my back
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| I got death on my back
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| Swing low sweet chariots
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| Then (?) this penitentiary
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| So I can find religion
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| Get this death off my back
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| Sing it for me
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| Clutching brown bibles
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| With corn-rows in your hair
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| Sing it for me
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| On the phone through the glass while the nurse watching
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| She took my legs, I ain’t leaving
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| I’ll be here with this song in my head
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| They got me after all that running
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| After all them prayer since I was a little boy
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| My father baptized by the word
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| And run-ins with the holy ghost
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| Singing low to touch someone
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| We was singing in the penitentiary you know
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| Singing away the years
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| One time we sung the same song for five years
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| Next thing I knew, I was home back in the projects |