Lyrics Hold On - Live at the Mosque, Richmond, VA, 8/8/1989 - Lou Reed

This a song called "Hold On"

There's whites with guns and blacks with knives
Fighting in Howard Beach
There's no such thing as human rights
When you walk the New York streets
Cop was shot in the head by a ten-year-old kid
Named Buddha, in the Park last week
The fathers and daughters lined up at the coffins
By the Statue of Bigotry

Better hold on
Something's happening here
Better hold on
Something's happening here

The dopers sent a message to the cops last weekend
They shot him in the car where he sat
And Eleanor Bumpurs and Michael Stewart
They must have appreciated that
There's a rampaging rage rising up like a plague
Of bloody vials looking out on the beach
Take more than the Angels or Iron Mike Tyson
To heal that bloody breach

You better hold on
Something's happening here
You better hold on
Yeah, something's happening here

Junkie ran down a lady, a pregnant dancer
She'll never dance, the baby was saved
He shot up some China white and nodded out at the wheel
But he can't remember a thing
They shot that old lady 'cause they thought she was a witness
To a crime she didn't even see
Whose home is the home of the brave
By the Statue of Bigotry?

Whoa, baby, better hold on
Something's happening here
Hold on
Aw, something's happening here

You got a black 38 and a gravity knife
But you still gotta take the train
There's the smelly essence of New York down there
But you ain't no Bernard Goetz
There's no mafia lawyer to sit in your corner
For your 15 minutes of fame
The have and have-nots are bleeding in the tub
That's New York's spouting, not mine

Hey, baby, better hold on
Something's happening here
Hold on
There is something happening here

Hold on
Hold on, baby, something's happening here
Oh, hold on
Hey, there's a riot in Tompkins Square