I stepped out on a celluloid night

that flickered on a black and white reel

Looking for something that I could not explain

I could only feel

These were the songs upheld by the shades

that spoke to me as I left town

Israelites, The Harder they Come, 54-47*

I hear them now

And the words of the prophets never sounded 

as good as the echo of a hard one drop

To be forever enslaved by a sound the creator

made- don't let it stop



Come again, midnight passenger

There to accompany down

To the end of the souls tlost avenue

Feel it now



I kept walking in the dust all night

Looking for a diamond in the crush

Halfway under in bars like a shop that was going

down-or coming up

It was not the sun that stung, but the feel of loss

and the voice of suffering and fate

Till I just stopped listening to the chatter of all

those yesterdays- crime pays



We will show up with all our secret problems

and even if we can't find land

There's a tone written into soul songs

that understands

we will be free