Public Enemy - The One lyrics

rate me

I came from a place I forgot

I woke up in a parking lot

Far from a meal and a cot

On the corner

Where all the streets got the same name

Maybe my brains on the brink of insane

Pain between the papers while sleepin' on the train

This the land of milk and honey

Know what I'm sayin'

The invisible man times three black, down and out

Out standing on a corner no doubt

Now a nation of homeless sleepin' in bus stations

Another win for the pilgrims who said no more Haitians

As I proceed someone to feed me is what I need

Through three blocks of dealers tryin to hit me off wit weed

Avenue and boulevard hungry as a motherfucka

Hope to get a ride from a trucker

Everybody know I ain?t no sucker

Everyone used to drop 30 at the rucker

Away from crazy kids in generation wrecked

Dissin' pyramids while praisin' projects

Walk past old folks gettin' no respect

Callin' young folks a bunch a no good rejects and I walk on

An eye for an eye I can?t recognize the man in the mirror

Is it I, it is I now who this cat I'm lookin' at

'Cause I've been waiting so long to get where I'm goin'

An for an eye in this country tis of thee

Now how the hell can I be free

Who this cat I'm lookin' at

'Cause I been lost so long without anybody knowin'

So I move on and I walk on

Past the preachers and the pimps gettin' their talk on

Now why do home gotta be where the negative roam

To be or not to be so I roll alone

I'm trapped within this skin and these bones

Temporary kings on cellular phones

Can I last as I walk past

Cigarette billboards and malt liquor ads

Walkin' on broken bottles and potato chip bags

Everyone I see got the nerve to brag

Where they from what they got and don?t own squat

Disrespect where they from and ya might get shot

Zombies askin' me what the latest bomb be

Should shot the fuckin' sheriff and the fuckin' deputy

For okay in the drug trade and lettin' it be

But I know prison for me is an industry so I walk

I heard the best things in life be free

Didn?t god make the land the air we breathe

Not for the homeless don?t give a damn about me

In the mirror somebody else is starin' at me

Maybe prison is the skin I'm within

All this time I been sufferin' can?t fix it wit a bufferin'

Plus they said I'll never work in this town again

Damn so I keep on walkin'

An eye for an eye, I can?t recognize the man in the mirror

Is it I, it is I now who this cat I'm lookin' at

'Cause I've been waiting so long to get where I'm goin'

An for an eye in this country tis of thee

Now how the hell can I be free

Who this cat I'm lookin' at

'Cause I been lost so long without anybody knowin'

Li'l day day is big day and just did time

Seen him standin' on the unemployment line

Which collided wit the line of the health clinic

I seen crazy Stacy her ass standin' up in it

No more welfare cut her Medicaid

Damn my mama used to do her braids

I keep walkin so they don?t see me

But I doubt if they doin' any better than me

So I walk on never take the planet for granted

I paved the concrete, asphalt and granite

I walk past 3 brothers sittin' on the porch

Wit a yard of dirt and littered wit Newports

Talkin' how they comin' up while they sittin' on their ass

As I walk past em I'm a target of their laughs

And one said lets get 'em for his fuckin' stash

As I walked fast past the other yards wit grass

Had a li'l cash tried to make it last

From a few deals I made from cleanin' windshields

I ran like a rally they caught me in an alley

Can?t get out the ghetto from New York to Cali

I thought I had nuthin' till I felt the knife

And now I ain?t even got a life