My father he liked poetry, a scholar he might have made.
Had nothing, born a poor boy barefoot and underpaid
So the man worked with his hands up and down the land,
His dreams forgot he thought that I must follow.

With his marks as worker’s wisdom he’d read a thing or two
He once had been a Mason but he never followed through.
Always kind and thoughtful, smelling of mushy oil
And he read me poetry of visionaries.

I flunk my way to college, a looser kind of school
But we bobbed and played time arty, feeling cool
Just to live an artists diggin’ the ravin’ scene
Reading Kerouac and Ginsberg well deuced.

I was not academic, Art and English neat,
The history of mankind I liked that a bit.
And what was I to do? The choices they were few,
I done right disgrace to the working classes

I done right disgrace to the working classes
I done right disgrace to the working classes
I done right disgrace to the working classes.

My mother was a tight nut bound up with false guilt
Strapped up in her fearing wall she had built.
The independent girl in a dark and cruel world
She’d lost the way to say, “OK, now lay back”.

We disagreed on most things, I shouted peace and love
The family is mankind, the symbol of the dove.
She only saw the surface of things before her