Lyrics The Message - Stiff Little Fingers

The Message

Broken glass everywhere
People pissing on the station
Y’know they just don’t care
I can’t take the smell
I can’t take the noise
I got no money to move out
I guess I got no choice
Rats in the front room
Roaches in the back
Junkies in the alley with a baseball bat
I tries to get away but I couldn’t get far
Cos a man with a truncheon re-possessed my car
Don’t push me cos I’m close to the edge
I’m trying not to lose my head
It’s like a jungle sometimes
It makes me wonder how I keep from going under
My son said: «Daddy, I don’t wanna go to school
Cos the teacher’s a jerk, he must think I’m a fool
And all the kids smoke reefer I think it’d be cheaper
If I just got a job learned to be a street sweeper
I’ll dance to the beat, shuffle my feet wear a shirt and tie
And run with the creeps»
Cos it’s all about money ain’t a damn thing funny
You got to have a car in this land of milk and honey
A child is born with no state of mind
Blind to the ways of mankind
God is smiling on you but he’s frowning too
Because only God knows what you’ll go through
You’ll grow in the ghetto living second rate
And your eyes will see a song of deep hate
The places you play and where you stay
Looks like one great big alleyway
You’ll admire all the number book takers
The pimps the pushers and the big money makers
Driving great big cars spending twenties and tens
And you want to grow up to be just like them
Smugglers scramblers burglars gamblers
Pickpocket pedlars even panhandlers
You say I’m cool I’m no fool
But then you end up dropping right outa school
Now you’re unemployed null and void
Walking round like you’re Pretty Boy Floyd
Turn stick up kid look what you done did
Got sent up for an eight year bid
Being used and abused to serve like hell
Till one day you was found hung dead in the cell