Friday 26 November 2010

NEIGHBORHOOD BULLY - BOB DYLAN

I love BOB DYLAN.
The words of his songs cut right through to the truth.
Read the lyrics to NEIGHBORHOOD BULLY.


Neighborhood Bully



Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man


His enemies say he’s on their land


They got him outnumbered about a million to one


He got no place to escape to, no place to run


He’s the neighborhood bully





The neighborhood bully just lives to survive


He’s criticized and condemned for being alive


He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin


He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in


He’s the neighborhood bully



The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land


He’s wandered the earth an exiled man


Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn


He’s always on trial for just being born


He’s the neighborhood bully



Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized


Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.


Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad


The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to feel bad


He’s the neighborhood bully



Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim


That he’ll live by the rules that the world makes for him


’Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back


And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac


He’s the neighborhood bully



He got no allies to really speak of


What he gets he must pay for, he don’t get it out of love


He buys obsolete weapons and he won’t be denied


But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side


He’s the neighborhood bully



Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace


They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease


Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly. To hurt one they would weep


They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep


He’s the neighborhood bully



Every empire that’s enslaved him is gone


Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon


He’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand


In bed with nobody, under no one’s command


He’s the neighborhood bully



Now his holiest books have been trampled upon


No contract he signed was worth what it was written on


He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth


Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health


He’s the neighborhood bully




What’s anybody indebted to him for?


Nothin’, they say. He just likes to cause war


Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed


They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed


He’s the neighborhood bully




What has he done to wear so many scars?


Does he change the course of rivers? Does he pollute the moon and stars?


Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill


Running out the clock, time standing still



Neighborhood bully


Copyright © 1983 by Special Rider Music





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