Buddy Whittington Minor Blues
They say the globe is getting warmer,
While the world’s still growing cold
There’s no room in the shelter,
For the hungry and the old,
People living under bridges, in confusion and despair.
Their keeping house in cardboard boxes
In the sub zero night air.
With no hope of employment there ain’t much left to
lose,
It’s a major situation, giving me the minor blues.
On the corner stares a hooker, with the hollow looking
eyes,
She’ll turn a trick and score an fix an overdose an
die.
By the time the county’s buried her,
In a low rent pauper’s grave,
Her little sister’s out there on that corner sick with
aids,
You won’t see it in the paper ‘cause it seldom makes
the news,
But it’s a major situation giving me the minor blues.
The minor blues is saddest with its’ own sorrow and
pain,
You’ll know it when you hear it with its sombre sad
refrain,
You say it’s not my problem, say there’s nothing I can
do,
But this ain’t some third world country,
It’s right here with me and you.
It’s a game-land in the school yard, no place to play
and run,
Twelve year olds with crack-pots smoking ice and
packin’ guns,
See them hangin’ round the dope house,
Gettin’ high and skippin’ school,
Cause no-one’s at home to love them,
Teach them not to play the fool,
So the game becomes the family, the only one they ever
knew,
It’s a major situation, givin’ me the minor blues,
Street man in the alley, in an alcoholic haze,
Built a bonfire in a barrel, keepin’ warm back there
for days,
Said I’d lost my wife and family, back in 1993,
Till the lord comes back to get us,
This is how it looks for me.
It’s bedlam in the jailhouse as the doors revolve
again,
There housing 25 where there should be eight to ten,
Streets are filled with characters, all released too
soon,
It ain’t because they’ve done their time,
It’s ‘cause they’re out o’ room.
It’s called the justice system; they say it works for
me and you,
But the law is laced with loopholes and cracks that let
the criminals crawl through.
It’s a major situation, giving me the minor blues
