(Richard Holler)



I am a backseat driver from America

They drive to the left on Falls Road

And the man at the wheels name is Shamus

We pass a the child on a corner he knows

And Shamus says "now what chance has that kid got"

And I say from the back "I don't know"



He says "there's barbed wire at all of these exits"

There ain't no place in Belfast for that kid to go

And it's a hard life, it's a hard life

It's a very hard life

It's a hard life wherever you go

And we poison our children with hatred

And the hard life is all that they know



At the dairyline in Chicago

A fat man in front of me

He's calling black people trash to his children

And he's the only trash here I see

And I'm thinking this man wears a white hood

In the night when his children should sleep

But they'll slip to their windows and see him

They'll think that white hood's all they need



And it's a hard life, it's a hard life

It's a very hard life

It's a hard life wherever you go

And if we poison our children with hatred

Then the hard life is all that they know



I was a child of the sixties

When dreams could be held through tears

With Disney and Cronkite and Martin Luther

And I belived, I believed, I believed



Now I'm a backseat driver from America

And I'm not at the wheel of control

And I am guilty, I am worn, I am the root of all evil

And I can't drive on the left side of the road



And it's a hard life, it's a hard life

It's a very hard life

It's a hard life wherever you go

And if we poison our children with hatred

Then the hard life is all that they'll know



And there ain't no place in this world for these kids to go

Cause it's a hard life wherever you go



Has anybody here seen my old friend Abraham,

Can you tell me where he's gone?

He freed a lotta people, but it seems the good die young

I just looked around and he's gone.



Has anybody here seen my old friend Martin,

Can you tell me where he's gone?

He freed a lotta people, but it seems the good die young

I just looked around and he's gone.



Has anybody here seen my old friend John,

Can you tell me where he's gone?

He freed a lotta people, but it seems the good die young

I just looked around and he's gone.



Didn't you love the things they stood for?

Didn't they try to find some good in you and me?

And we'll be free

Someday soon it's gonna be one day



Has anybody here seen my old friend Bobby,

Can you tell me where he's gone?

I thought I saw him walkin' up over the hill

With Abraham and Martin and John.