The Roots f/ Baraka Something in the Way of (In Town)
In x3
in the way of things Something that will quit and start Something you know but stand Can't get along with Like on top of the car peering through the windshield for his cue Something fictitious and true creeps across your path hallowing your evil ways Like they were yourself passing not smiling The dead guy you saw me to is your boss I tried to put a spell on him but his spirit is
I know you know and nothing you don't know I saw something in the way of things Something grinning at me and I to know, was it funny? Was it so funny it followed me down the Greeting everybody the good humor man But an they got the taste of humor but no ice cream It was dat Me talking across people into the And not seeing the beings crowding me with ice picks You could see But they looked like important on the way to your funeral Looked like important jiggaboos on the way to auction And let chant the number and use an ivory pointer to count your teeth Remember Fetchit Remember Steppen how we laughed An all Sunday school images giving flesh and giggling With the ice pick off his head Made ya laugh
I can see something in the way of our I can see in the way of our selves That's why I say the things I do, you it But its something to you Like job This when you got there and it was quiet And the machines yearning soft behind you Yearning for nigga to come and give up his life there bein' dissed and broke and troubled
My mistake is I kept sayin' "that was proof that God exist" And you told me, "nah, it was proof that the do" But still, its I see something I hear things I saw in the white boy's lying rag said he was gonna die and frustrated them dreams walk which you 'cross town S'gonna die over work There's garbage on the street that's you you ain't shit And you believe it and mistaken all the time You know of the words but they ain't the right ones Your back on but ain't nothin' you can see But I see something in the way of Something to us stumble Something get us drunk noise and addicted to sadness I see something and feel something us Like and ugly thing floating at our back us names You see it and it too But you say it got a right to just like you and if God made it But then we got to And the light come down around us Even we remember where the (light or mic??) is the Negro squinting at us through the cage You what I see too? The smile that ain't a smile but teeth flying against our You see too but can't call its name
Ain't it too bad said Ain't it too bad, such a nice boy always kind to his Always say morning to everybody on his way to work But that last before he got locked up and hurt, real bad I seen him walkin' toward his house and he smiling And he didn't say hello But I knew he'd seen Something in the way of things that it worked on him like it do in And he kept marching and faster away from us And never even muttered a Then the next day he was You know what You know what I'm talkin' about "I seen something in the way of things" And how the boys face looked that day just before took him away The is? in that and remember now, remember all them other faces And all the places you've seen him or the sister with his child up the street Remember what you seen in your own and didn't for a second recognize The face, your own Straining to get out from the glass Open your mouth like you was say somethin' Close your eyes and remember what you saw and what it made you feel Now, you see something else cold and ugly Not but blended with the shadow criss-crossing the old man Squatting by the drug at the corner is head resting uneasily on his folded arms And the boy that smiled and the girl he with
And in my too A craziness splitting them into the jet stream of a black bird Wit his ass on Or the solomNOTness of we go to know we gonna be happy
I seen I SEEN And you it too You it too You just can't call it's name name name name name name