Ritualistic Americans
I knew you somehow
So different from me
So yang to my yin
So black to my white
Concentrated city to my open fields
But there were rhythms
Of forest nights
And painted faces
And ritual cutting of the flesh
For the club of lonely hearts
Listening to Diq-lark
Our gamma wave guru
We allowed our veins to
Be drawn to the compulsions
And yet we never met
Over the years we became so practiced
That we mastered
Every syllable that made us sing or tap
If I had a hammer
In my little Kansas farmhouse
To your pounding New York City
A Dragon named Puff eating toast and jam
The mystic messages seeped into our
Brain-bop-de-boom
Chants of "She loves you,
Yea, yea, yea "
A message we needed and getting no
Satisfaction from Baby Love.
Abraham, Martin and John,
Don't throw our love away
We wondered if heaven had a stairway and spent
A wild night in a California Hotel.
It was the highest price we ever paid for a good time.
About the time they said, "Send in the Clowns,"
We were dancing like crocodiles.
Let's stay together, loving you whether
Times are good or bad, happy or sad.
Let it be, Let it be, Let it be,
Always WE, WE, WE
In spite of our separation
We learned the codes
And all the symbols
Touched each other, felt the fever
Lived the myth, Motown, my town,
It was all about you and me.
We paid our money to keep the witch doctors talking;
You in your hot summer night cruise of main street
And me on my rainy day Monday.
We sang together miles apart
Tapped, cried, carved them out.
I can still recall the places and so can you
We have our tribal tattoos grooved in memory passages
Of gray matter.
Entrenched rhythms: We knew the unholy writ
Of Bobby Joe and Billie Jean
And feared the oracles.
The album covers still detailed in our minds
Like an ancient tableau Queen
Stomp, stomp, clap. Stomp, stomp, clap.
So hum me a little, you so called stranger
Whistle me a little more, as I wait behind you in line.
You were there at my initiation into adulthood.
We were engraved together
By the bop-de-she-bop bop
Umareikin clan.
