It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) (Live at Nippon Budokan Hall, Tokyo, Japan - February/March 1978)

It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) (Live at Nippon Budokan Hall, Tokyo, Japan - February/March 1978) - Bob Dylan

Darkness at the break of noon

Shadows even the silver spoon

The handmade blade the child's balloon

Eclipses both the sun and moon

To understand you know too soon

There is no sense in trying

Pointed threats they bluff with scorn

Suicide remarks are torn

From the fool's gold mouthpiece

The hollow horn plays wasted words

Proves to warn

That he not busy being born

Is busy dying

Temptation's page flies out the door

You follow find yourself at war

Watch waterfalls of pity roar

You feel to moan but unlike before

You discover

That you'd just be

One more person crying

So don't fear if you hear

A foreign sound to your ear

It's alright ma i'm only sighing

As some warn victory some downfall

Private reasons great or small

Can be seen in the eyes of those that call

To make all that should be killed to crawl

While others say don't hate nothing at all

Except hatred

Disillusioned words like bullets bark

As human gods aim for their mark

Made everything from toy guns that spark

To flesh-colored christs that glow in the dark

It's easy to see without looking too far

That not much

Is really sacred

While preachers preach of evil fates

Teachers teach that knowledge waits

Can lead to hundred-dollar plates

Goodness hides behind it's gates

But even the president of the united states

Sometimes must have

To stand naked

An' though the rules of the road have been lodged

It's only people's games that you got to dodge

And it's alright ma i can make it

Advertising signs that con you

Into thinking you're the one

That can do what's never been done

That can win what's never been won

Meantime life outside goes on

All around you

You lose yourself you reappear

You suddenly find you got nothing to fear

Alone you stand with nobody near

When a trembling distant voice unclear

Startles your sleeping ears to hear

That somebody thinks

They really found you

A question in your nerves is lit

Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy

Insure you not to quit

To keep it in your mind and not fergit

That it is not he or she or them or it

That you belong to

Although the masters make the rules

For the wise men and the fools

I got nothing ma to live up to

Old lady judges watch people in pairs

Limited in sex they dare

To push fake morals insult and stare

While money doesn't talk it swears

Obscenity who really cares propaganda all is phony

While them that defend what they cannot see

With a killer's pride security

It blows the minds most bitterly

For them that think death's honesty

Won't fall upon them naturally

Life sometimes

Must get lonely

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards

False gods i scuff

At pettiness which plays so rough

Walk upside-down inside handcuffs

Kick my legs to crash it off

Say okay i have had enough

What else can you show me

And if my thought-dreams could be seen

They'd probably put my head in a guillotine

But it's alright ma it's life and life only