Michael Franti & Spearhead - Speaking Of Tongues lyrics

rate me

You don't have to be so scared to share what's inside

'cause you're Daddy's little superstar

And you're Mama's little butterfly

Fly high

A strange strange litany of verses and reverses

Adlibs and rehearses

Clouds burst and words cursed

An argument breaks out

It's one we've all heard before, it's boring

Had us all snoring from the first line

One after another chimed in perfect time

Tired rehashes of petty cashes and mismatches

You shoulda coulda's

And "why didn't 'tcha dida's"

Crippling snippets aimed at the heart

To inflame and impart blame

Framed like Mumia

Verbal diarrhoea

Creating chasms between the souls of two

Or two billion

Nations torn apart

Station to station damnation

With much deliberation and very little consideration

To the return on the damage from the altercation

Collateral condemnation

Then denyin' like colorization of an old black and white

Create a revision of the recent last night

The fight that started with two words, "I'm right"

[Chorus]

You don't have to be so scared to share what's inside

'cause you're Daddy's little superstar

And you're Mama's little butterfly

Fly high

But of course the fight ends with no resolution

Merely a vow for retribution, substitution, execution, electrocution

Ruthless, toothless and truthless

Mumbling through page after page of excuses

Abuses of the gift of the gab

Gabriel the trumpeter

Bestowed upon us a voice with a choice

And a tongue kept moist by years of salivating

For oysters.. pearls and aphrodisiacs

Locked in an ugly shell always too chewy and gooey

So they get swallowed whole

But a tongue is so much more than a vehicle for greed

A tongue is for washing fur

Or for licking wounds

Or for welcoming newcomers into a room

Or cleansing those fresh from the womb

Without a tongue there would be no croons

Swoons, Junes under the moon

No bees pollinating no flowers in bloom

No recitation of words at the foot of a tomb

Or wills read aloud of the family heirlooms

You probably couldn't even blow up a balloon

And that would be a shame

Because to exhales the name of the game

Exhale from the heart

Not from the lungs

Exhale from the heart

Not from the tongue

[Chorus]

Listening is understanding

And finding compassion

Love is the action of soul satisfaction

A tongue can make wishes and also fine kisses

Taste a sweet cake and also cast disses

But nothing compares to the voice from within

Without it we might just be mannequins

Up to no darn good shenanigans

Learn to be skilful movers of the stones

That block the heart and turn humans to clones

Learn to forgive, set free the bones

Touch with your flesh, take off the rubber gloves

Love like your life depends on it

Because it does

[Chorus]