Lyrics It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) (live recording) - The Byrds

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The hand made blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There's no sense in trying
Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece, the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves 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
You 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 to your ear
It's alright Ma, I'm only sighing
As 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 like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred
While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the President of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked
And though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And 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 lose 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
That somebody thinks they really found you
A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit
To satisfy ensure 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
But though the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing Ma, to live up to
For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destiny
Speak jealously of them that are free
Do what they do just to be
Nothing more than something
They invest in
While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And say God bless him
While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in
But I mean no harm, not put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright Ma, if I can't please him
Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While 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 goals, I scoff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have 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