Tell me before I waltz out of your life
Before turning my back on the past
Forgive my impertinent behavior
But how long do you think this pantomime can last?
Tell me before I ride off in the sunset
There's one thing I never got clear
How can you claim you're our savior
When those who oppose you are stepped on,
Or cut up, or simply disappear?
Tell me before you get onto your bus
Before joining the forgotten brigade
How can one person like me, say,
Alter the time-honored way the game is played?
Tell me before you get onto your high horse
Just what you expect me to do
I don't care what the bourgeoisie say
I'm not in business for them
But to give all my descamisados
A magical moment or two
There is evil, ever around
Fundamental system of government
Quite incidental
So what are my chances of honest advances?
I'd say low
Better to win by admitting my sin
Than to lose with a halo
Tell me before I seek worthier pastures
And thereby restore self-esteem
How can you be so short-sighted
To look never further than this week or next week
To have no impossible dream?
Allow me to help you slink off to the sidelines
And mark your adieu with three cheers
But first tell me who'd be delighted
If I said I'd take on the world's greatest problems
From war to pollution, no hope of solution
Even if I lived for one hundred years
There is evil, ever around
Fundamental system of government
Quite incidental
So go, if you're able, to somewhere unstable
And stay there
Whip up your hate in some tottering state
But not here, dear
Is that clear, dear?
Oh what I'd give for a hundred years
But the physical interferes
Every day more, O my Creator
What is the good of the strongest heart
In a body that's falling apart?
A serious flaw, I hope You know that