work for peace

scott-heron, gil

back when eisenhower was the president

golf courses was where most of his time was spent. so i never really listened to what the president said

because in general i believed that the general was politically dead. but he always seemed to know when the muscles were about to be flexed

because i remember him saying something

mumbling something about a military industrial complex. americans no longer fight to keep their shores safe

just to keep the jobs going in the arms making workplace. then they pretend to be gripped by some sort of political reflex

but all they're doing is paying dues to the military industrial complex. the military and the monetary

the military and the monetary

the military and the monetary. the military and the monetary

get together whenever they think its necessary

they turn our brothers and sisters into mercenaries

they are turning the planet into a cemetery. the military and the monetary

use the media as intermediaries

they are determined to keep the citizens secondary

they make so many decisions that are arbitrary. we're marching behind a commander in chief

who is standing under a spotlight shaking like a leaf. but the ship of state had landed on an economic reef

so we knew he was going to bring us messages of grief. the military and the monetary

were shielded by january and went storming into february

brought us pot bellied generals as luminaries

two weeks ago i hadn't heard of the son of a bitch

now all of a sudden he's legendary. they took the honour from the honourary

they took the dignity from the dignitaries

they took the secrets from the secretary

but they left the bitch in obituary. the military and the monetary

from thousands of miles away in a saudi arabian sanctuary

had us all scrambling for our dictionaries

cause we couldn't understand the fuckin vocabulary. yeah

there was some smart bombs

but there was some dumb ones as well

scared the hell out of cnn in that baghdad hotel. the military and the monetary

they get together whenever they think its necessary

war in the desert sometimes sure is scary

but they beamed out the war to all their subsidiaries. tried to make so damn insane a worthy adversary

keeping the citizens secondary

scaring old folks into coronaries. the military and the monetary

from thousands of miles in a saudi arabian sanctuary

kept us all wondering if all of this was really truely

necessary. we've got to work for peace

peace ain't coming this way. if we only work for peace

if everyone believed in peace the way they say they do

we'd have peace. the only thing wrong with peace

is that you can't make no money from it. the military and the monetary

they get together whenever they think its necessary

they've turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries

they are turning the planet

into a cemetery. got to work for peace

peace ain't coming this way. we should not allow ourselves to be mislead

by talk of entering a time of peace

peace is not the absence of war

it is the absence of the rules of war and the threats of war and the preparation for war. peace is not the absence of war

it is the time when we will all bring ourselves closer to each other

closer to building a structure that is unique within ourselves

because we have finally come to peace within ourselves. the military and the monetary

the military and the monetary

the military and the monetary. get together whenever they think its necessary

they've turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries

they are turning parts of the planet

into a cemetery. the military and the monetary

the military and the monetary

we hounded the ayatollah religiously

bombed libya and killed quadafi's son hideously. we turned our back on our allies the panamanians

and saw ollie north selling guns to the iranians. watched gorbachev slaughtering lithuanians

we better warn the amish

they may bomb the pennsylvanians. the military and the monetary

get together whenever they think its necessary

they have turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries

they are turning the planet

into a cemetery. i don't want to sound like no late night commercial

but its a matter of fact that there are thousands of children all over the world

in asia and africa and in south america who need our help. when they start talking about 55 cents a day and 70 cents a day

i know a lot of folks feel as though that

thats not really any kind of contribution to make

but we had to give up a dollar and a half just to get in the subway nowadays. so this is a song about tommorrow and about how tommorrow can be better. if we all

each one reach one