By the People Songtext

von Van Dyke Parks

Strike up the band brother
Hand me another bowl of your soul.
Brother has a long way to go
Maybe baby should know
His cotton mouth is too slow
For the song of the forgotten South,
Just don't hang us up here.

Step by step by
Please though proletarian am I.
By chance am you
"wine git out de way o'de darkies.
You'd better hustle up a storm
To sing this Caucasian lullaby.
Sleep oh my darling now sleep.
Draw freehand over Iron Curtain.
Stalk up on the trim bamboo.
To footridge the bullrushes
Certain to know law,
American express.

No Caucasian flair
For flim-flam will do.
Step by please step by.
Weigh the small advance.
There is still a chance.

Let's assume that we form a company men.
No mention should the pass in revue of the show.
Just understand that I prefer to be dead than red white
Or blue as I write sturdy crew.
As you view these few Russians
Whose true dawn came to view long ago.
So I think that you'd better strike up the band brother
Hand me another bowl of your soul.
The song of the forgotten South
Just don't hang us up here.
Here the unknown is at hand
And not far from my heel
A tarbaby feel for the Czar.
For those who are lonely well
The Black sea is callin'
Georgia's Stalin has fallen
So you all come here.
We now are near to the end.
If you stay with the show say
We all had to go to hasten to jar
The few nations too far gone to step by.