Lives in the Balance Songtext

von Richie Havens

I've been waiting for something to happen
For a week or a month or a year
With the blood in the ink of the headlines
And the sound of the crowd in my ear
You might ask what it takes to remember
When you think that you've heard it before
How governments lie to their people
And a country is drifting to war

There are shadows on the faces
Of the men who fan the flames
To those wars that are fought in places
Where we can't even pronounce their names

On the radio talk shows and T.V.
You hear one thing again and again
How the U.S.A. stands for freedom
And how we come to the aid of a friend
But who are the ones that we call our friends
These governments killing their own?
Or is it the ones who can't take any more
So they pick up a brick or a gun or a stone

There are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
There is blood on the wire

Shadows on the faces
Of the men who send the guns
To those wars that are fought in places
Where their business interest runs

I want to know who these men in the shadows are
I want to hear somebody asking them why
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But they are never around to fight or to die

There are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire
There is blood on the wire