Annakin Slayd Jackie
You know change is a funny thing
Tomorrow never knows what the sun will bring
Jackie had a difficult task laced with hate
And a gift he didn't hesitate to embrace
He was born defaced but never disfigured by race
At the mercy of the trigger of fate
It must have took a lot of grin and bear and cringe and brace
But the smaller the man he faced, the bigger his grace
Jackie was trapped in a time but needed a place
A town that didn't care about the shade of his face
In the south a black man wouldn't last one season
But up here he was chased for all the right reasons
A star, a light in blackest of skies
Temporarily held back in the blackest of times
No secret handshakes, silent shackles or lies
Could stop the flood of change when Jackie arrived
Couldn't stop it this time
When Jackie arrived
We all changed
Wish I could've been there that day
Without this city of mine
Who's to say?
We might have never been the same
We crown a lot of kings
They flash a lot of rings
But could they have spread those wings
Without the hero of that 46 spring
You know change is a funny thing
Tomorrow never knows what the dawn will bring
I wonder if Jackie could ever have imagined
The many repercussions of his actions
Could he have seen Selma or the march on Washington happen
The end of Jim Crow, the end of the madness
Could he have imagined a millennium of irreverence
Dealing with the same lies, rhetoric and bedlam
We throw a lot of words around like legend
And talk nonsense of angels sent from heaven
But if there was one who could have happened to snuck in
He started out in Cali and ended up in Brooklyn
On the way he came to this city of mine
Montreal made a mark and not for the last time
John Carlos found a home when no one would understand
And then we held out our hands for Michael Sam
On the ice we made a star of one man
Now one day there'll be a thousand PK Subbans
Takes heroes to help the rest of us thrive
And we all found that out when Jackie arrived
When Jackie arrived
We all changed
Wish I could've been there that day
Without this city of mine
Who's to say?
We might have never been the same
