Lyrics It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) (Live) - Bob Dylan & The Band

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fools gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays
Wasted words proved to warn
That he not busy being born is busy dying

Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
Feel to moan but unlike before
You discover that you'd just be
One more person crying

So don't fear if you hear
A foreign sound in your ear
It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing

Some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don't hate nothing at all
Except hatred

Disillusioned words are like a bullet's bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
Easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred

While preachers preach of the evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to the hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the President of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked

Though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's people's games, you got to dodge
But it's alright, Ma, I can make it

Advertising signs that con
You into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you

You loose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
Someone thinks they really found you

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy
Insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not forget
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma to live up to

Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
Money doesn't talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes must get lonely

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards
False Gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say alright, I've had enough
What else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, Ma, it's life and life only