"H2O Gate Blues" lyrics - GIL SCOTT-HERON

Heh, don't wanna be involved in this one, huh?
This here is gonna be a blues number.
But first I wanna do a little bit of background on the Blues
And say what it is.

Like, there are 6 cardinal colors
And colors have always come to signify more than that particular shade.
Like: "red-neck" or "got the blues."
That's where you apply somethin' to a color, to express what you're trying to say.
So, there are 6 cardinal colors: Yellow, Red, Orange, Green, Blue, and Purple.
And there are 3,000 shades.
And if you take these 3,000 and divide them by 6, you come up with 500.
Meaning that there are at least 500 shades of The Blues.
For example, there is...

The "I ain't got me no money, blues".
There is the "I ain't got me no woman, blues".
There is the "I ain't got me no money AND I ain't got me no woman".
Which is the double blues.

And for years it was thought that Black people was the only ones who could get the blues.
So the Blues hadn't come into no international type of fame. (...had a corner on the market.)

But lately we had...

The Frank Rizzo with the "Lie Detector Blues".

We had the United States government talkin' 'bout the "Energy Crisis Blues".

And we gonna dedicate this next poem here to Spearhead X.
The Ex-Second in Command in terms of this Country. (He GOT the blues.)*laughter*

And the poem is called the "H2O G-A-T-E Blues".
And if H2O is still water
And G-A-T-E is still gate
What we gettin' ready to deal on is the
"Watergate Blues"... (Yeah~ Yeah~ haha~)*scattered applause*
(Rated X!)

Lemme see if I can dial this number...

Click! Whirr... Click!

"I'm sorry, the government you have elected is inoperative...
Click! Inoperative!"

Just how blind will America be?
The world is on the edge of its seat
Defeat on the horizon. very surprisin'
That we all could see the plot and still could not...
- Let me do that part again.

Just how blind will America be? (Ain't no tellin')
The world is on the edge of its seat
Defeat on the horizon. very surprisin'
That we all could see the plot
And claimed that we could not.(All right~)

Just how blind, America?
Just as Vietnam exploded in the rice
Snap, crackle, and pop (Uh Oh!)
Could not stop people determined to be free.
Just how blind will America be?(Yes Sir!)

The shock of a Vietnam defeat
Sent Republican donkeys scurrying down on Wall Street
And when the roll was called it was:
Pepsi-Cola and Phillips 66
Boeing, Dow and Lockheed
Ask them what we're fighting for and they never mention the economics of war.
Ecological Warfare!
Above all else destroy the land!
If we can't break the Asian will
We'll bomb the dykes and starve the man!

America!
The international Jekyll and Hyde
The land of a thousand disguises
Sneaks up on you but rarely surprises (Yeah!)
Plundering the Asian countryside
In the name of Fu Man Thieu.

Afraid of shoeless, undernourished Cambodians
While we strike big wheat bargains with Russia
Our nuclear enemy
Just how blind, America?

But tell me, who was around where Hale Boggs died?
And what was the 'cause of LBJ's untimely demise?
And what really happened to J. Edgar Hoover?
The king is proud of Patrick Gray
While America's faith is drowning
Beneath that cesspool-Watergate. (Yeah!)

How long will the citizens sit and wait?
It's looking like Europe in '38
Did they move to stop Hitler before it was too late? (no...)
How long. America before the consequences of
Keeping the school systems segregated
Allowing the press to be intimidated
Watching the price of everything soar
And hearing complaints 'cause the rich want more? (All right!)
It seems that MacBeth, and not his lady, went mad
We've let him eliminate the whole middle class
The dollar's the only thing we can't inflate
While the poor go on without a new minimum wage
What really happened to J Edgar Hoover?
The kind is proud of Patrick Gray
And there are those who say America's faith is drowning
Beneath that cesspool-Watergate.

How much more evidence do the citizens need
That the election was sabotaged by trickery and greed?
And, if this is so, and who we got didn't win
Let's do the whole goddamn election over again! (Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!)

The obvious key to the whole charade
Would be to run down all of the games they played:
Remember Dita Beard and ITT, the slaughter of Attica,
The C.I.A. in Chile knowing nothing about Allende at this time
In the past. As I recollect, Augusta Georgia
The nomination of Supreme Court Jesters to head off the tapes
William Calley's Executive Interference
In the image of John Wayne.
Kent State, Jackson State, Southern Louisiana.
Hundreds of unauthorized bombing raids.
The chaining and gagging of Bobby Seale -
Somebody tell these Maryland Governors to be for real!

We recall all of these events just to prove (Yeah!)
The Waterbuggers in the Watergate wasn't no news!
The thing that seems to justify all of our fears
Is that all of this went down in the last five years.
But tell me, what really happened to J. Edgar Hoover?
The kind is proud of Patrick Gray
While America's faith is drowning
Beneath that cesspool-Watergate.

We leave America to ponder the image
Of justice from its new wave of leaders
Frank Rizzo, the high school graduate
Mayor of Philadelphia, whose ignorance
Is surpassed only by those who voted for him. (Hahahaha)
Richard Daley, imperial Napoleonic Mayor of Chicago.
Who took over from Al Capone and
Continues to implement the same tactics.
George Wallace. Lester Maddawg
Strom Thurmond, Ronald Reagan-
An almost endless list that won't be missed when at last
America is purged (Yeah! All right~)

And the silent White House with the James Brothers
Once in command.
But see the sauerkraut Mafia men
Deserting the sinking White House ship and
Their main mindless, meglomaniac Ahab.

McCord has blown. Mitchell has blown no tap on my telephone,
McCord has blown. Mitchell has blown no tap on my telephone
Halderman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell and Dean
It follows a pattern if you dig what I mean.
Halderman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell and Dean
It follows a pattern if you dig what I mean.

And what are we left with now?
Bumper stickers that say Free the Watergate 500.
Spy movies of the same name with a cast of thousands.
And that ominous phrase: that if Nixon knew, Agnew knew!(check it out!)
But Agnew knew enough to stay out of jail
What really happened to J. Edgar Hoover?
The kind is proud of Patrick Gray
And there are those who swear they've seen King Richard (who? who?)
King Richard
(Who?)
King Richard
(Who?)
King Richard
(Who?)
King Richard
(Who?)
King Richard
King Richard
King Richard
King Richard- (Yeah!)
Beneath that cesspool-Watergate.
[Applause]

Four more years,
Four more years,
Four more years,
Four more years of THAT?