Back in the day as a little kid
When my daddy said “Jump,” that’s what I did,
But there’s one thing that I must admit,
Some things I did really made him trip
And I’ll say to you, he had a hand
In helpin’ me grow into a man
He said, “Son, you gotta learn wrong and right,
‘Cause the two are just like day and night.”
Now see that boy hangin’ out with thugs,
Spend all day messin’ ’round with drugs
That stuff’ll make you paranoid
And turn your brain null and void,
(That stuff’ll make you paranoid
And turn your brain null and void)
Have you doin’ crimes that ain’t fit to mention,
Grow up in juvenile detention
Take it heavy or take it light
But it’s all laid out in black and white
Round the world or the neighborhood,
Can’t see nothin’ but bad or good
It’s all black and white, black and white
It’s stand or fall, win or lose
Read all about it in the news
In black and white, black and white
Two sides to a coin, it never fails,
One side’s heads up, one’s full of tails.
That’s the way it looks sometimes, it seems,
When the land of law’s versus the land of dreams
Why can’t it be? It seems so clear –
Do the right thing there, I’ll do mine here
But I guess it ain’t that cut and dried
That’s the way it is but who knows why
The world is just one big gang fight,
No in betweens, just run or strike
My big brother lived through the sixties and
He says, “You don’t know what it was like, man,
The spades and the peckerwoods throwin’ down,
Sit-ins and riots all around,
Cops shootin’ demonstrators dead
South Africa, same thing again.”
You see, when the wrong takes away the rights,
It all comes out in black and white
Yeah, when the wrongs affect the rights,
You can see it all in black and white
Round the world or the neighborhood,
Can’t see nothin’ but bad or good
It’s all black and white, black and white
It’s stand or fall, win or lose
Read all about it in the news
In black and white, black and white
Look, the way I see it, just like two wrongs don’t make a right
It’s not always as plain as black and white
Sometimes there’s a whole lot to be seen,
In that area in between
