"In the Streets" was composed around 1986 as a reaction to the cover story of an American weekly news magazine. The cover pictured a young boy, a "soldier", maybe 10 years old, proudly adorned with a kalishnokov and belts of ammunition. Another article told how suicide bombers are recruited in another land -- they bury them for a day with only their holy book to comfort them.
The plaintive melody I used is related to one Pete Seeger used for "The American Land".
He has no name, he has no face.
He plays his games in the streets,
of the USA...and...Afghanistan!
He comes by night, he comes by day.
He comes to fight in the streets,
of the USA...and...Afghanistan!Dirty old men in smoke-filled rooms
Give him weapons and the message of doom:
"Kill for love and kill for hate"
"Kill for 'God' and the 'Needs-of-the-State'"
"Kill for thrills and kill for crack"
"Kill just as long as the craziness lasts"
It's a fact: I could just as easily name almost any land
from the USA...to...Afghanistan!
He has no father, he has no mother.
And if he did, would it matter?
in the USA...and...Afghanistan?
Eyes full of pain, heart full of fear;
He'll blow you away in the streets
of the USA...and...Afghanistan!He kills for the future, he kills for the past!
He'll just as long as the craziness lasts!
They put him in a box, buried in the ground.
If he doesn't cry out, if he doesn't make a sound,
They tell him that he's "holy" and, if he's ready to die,
he can go straight to heaven on a chariot of fire!
It's a fact: I could just as easily name almost any land
from the USA...to...Afghanistan!
My wife, Sunflower Woman, in her autobiographical poem about growing up in an occupied country asks this question, "What have we done to the child, that it should know there is no God?
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