GIL SCOTT-HERON AND BRIAN JACKSON - H2O Gate Blues lyrics

rate me

Heh, don't wanna be involved in this one, huh?

This here is gonna be a blues number.

But first I wanna do a little bit of background on the Blues

And say what it is.

Like, there are 6 cardinal colors

And colors have always come to signify more than that particular shade.

Like: "red-neck" or "got the blues."

That's where you apply somethin to a color, to express what you're trying to say.

So, there are 6 cardinal colors: Yellow, Red, Orange, Green, Blue, and Purple.

And there are 3,000 shades.

And if you take these 3,000 and divide them by 6, you come up with 500.

Meaning that there are at least 500 shades of The Blues.

For example, there is...

The "I ain't got me no money, blues".

There is the "I ain't got me no woman, blues".

There is the "I ain't got me no money AND I ain't got me no woman".

which is the double blues.

And for years it was thought that Black people was the only ones who could get the blues.

So the Blues hadn't come into no international type of fame. (...had a corner on the market.)

But lately we had..

The Frank Rizzo with the "Lie Detector Blues".

We had the United States government talkin bout the "Energy Crisis Blues".

And we gonna dedicate this next poem here to Spearhead X.

The Ex-Second in Command in terms of this Country. (He GOT the blues.) [laughter]

And the poem is called the "H2O G-A-T-E Blues".

And if H2O is still water

And G-A-T-E is still gate

What we gettin ready to deal on is the

"Watergate Blues"... (Yeah YEAH haha) [scattered applause]

(Rated X!)

Lemme see if I can dial this number....

Click! Whirr ... Click!

"I'm sorry, the government you have elected is inoperative ...

Click! Inoperative!"

Just how blind will America be?

The world is on the edge of its seat

Defeat on the horizon. very surprisin'

That we all could see the plot and still could not...

-- let me do that part again.

Just how blind will America be? (Ain't no tellin')

The world is on the edge of its seat

Defeat on the horizon. very surprisin'

That we all could see the plot

And claimed that we could not. (Alright)

Just how blind, America?

Just as Vietnam exploded in the rice

snap, crackle, and pop (Uh Oh!)

Could not stop people determined to be free.

Just how blind will America be? (Yes Sir!)

The shock of a Vietnam defeat

Sent Republican donkeys scurrying down on Wall Street

And when the roll was called it was:

Pepsi-Cola and Phillips 66

Boeing, Dow & Lockheed

Ask them what we're fighting for and they never mention the economics of war.

Ecological Warfare!

Above all else destroy the land!

If we can't break the Asian will

We'll bomb the dykes and starve the man!

America!

The international Jekyll and Hyde

The land of a thousand disguises

Sneaks up on you but rarely surprises (Yeah!)

Plundering the Asian countryside

in the name of Fu Man Thieu.

Afraid of shoeless, undernourished Cambodians

While we strike big wheat bargains with Russia

Our nuclear enemy

Just how blind, America?

But tell me, who was around where Hale Boggs died?

And what was the cause of LBJ's untimely demise?

And what really happened to J. Edgar Hoover?

The king is proud of Patrick Gray

While America's faith is drowning

beneath that cesspool-Watergate. (Yeeeah!)

How long will the citizens sit and wait?

It's looking like Europe in '38

Did they move to stop Hitler before it was too late? (no...)

How long. America before the consequences of

Keeping the school systems segregated

Allowing the press to be intimidated

Watching the price of everything soar

And hearing complaints 'cause the rich want more? (Alright!)

It seems that MacBeth, and not his lady, went mad

We've let him eliminate the whole middle class

The dollar's the only thing we can't inflate

While the poor go on without a new minimum wage

What really happened to J Edgar Hoover?

The kind is proud of Patrick Gray

And there are those who say America's faith is drowning

Beneath that cesspool-Watergate.

How much more evidence do the citizens need

That the election was sabotaged by trickery and greed?

And, if this is so, and who we got didn't win

Let's do the whole goddamn election over again! (YEAH! YEAH! YEAH!)

The obvious key to the whole charade

Would be to run down all of the games they played:

Remember Dita Beard and ITT, the slaughter of Attica,

The C.I.A. in Chile knowing nothing about Allende at this time

In the past. As I recollect, Augusta Georgia

The nomination of Supreme Court Jesters to head off the tapes

William Calley's Executive Interference

in the image of John Wayne.

Kent State, Jackson State, Southern Louisiana.

Hundreds of unauthorized bombing raids.

The chaining and gagging of Bobby Seale -

Somebody tell these Maryland Governors to be for real!

We recall all of these events just to prove (Yeah!)

The Waterbuggers in the Watergate wasn't no news!

The thing that seems to justify all of our fears

Is that all of this went down in the last five years.

But tell me, what really happened to J. Edgar Hoover?

The kind is proud of Patrick Gray

While America's faith is drowning

Beneath that cesspool-Watergate.

We leave America to ponder the image

Of justice from its new wave of leaders

Frank Rizzo, the high school graduate

Mayor of Philadelphia, whose ignorance

Is surpassed only by those who voted for him. (Hahahaha)

Richard Daley, imperial Napoleonic Mayor of Chicago.

who took over from Al Capone and

Continues to implement the same tactics.

George Wallace. Lester Maddawg

Strom Thurmond, Ronald Reagan-

An almost endless list that won't be missed when at last

America is purged (Yeah! Alright)

And the silent White House with the James Brothers

once in command.

But see the sauerkraut Mafia men

deserting the sinking White House ship and

Their main mindless, meglomaniac Ahab.

McCord has blown. Mitchell has blown no tap on my telephone,

McCord has blown. Mitchell has blown no tap on my telephone

Halderman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell and Dean

It follows a pattern if you dig what I mean.

Halderman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell and Dean

It follows a pattern if you dig what I mean.

And what are we left with now?

Bumper stickers that say Free the Watergate 500.

Spy movies of the same name with a cast of thousands.

And that ominous phrase: that if Nixon knew, Agnew knew! (check it out!)

But Agnew knew enough to stay out of jail

What really happened to J. Edgar Hoover?

The kind is proud of Patrick Gray

And there are those who swear they've seen King Richard (who? who?)

King Richard

(who?)

King Richard

(who?)

King Richard

(who?)

King Richard

(who?)

King Richard

King Richard

King Richard

King Richard- (Yeah!)

Beneath that cesspool-Watergate.

[Applause]

Four more years,

Four more years,

Four more years,

Four more years of THAT?