The Message - Grandmaster Flash, The Furious Five

It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder

How I keep from going under

It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder

How I keep from going under

My brothers doin' bad, stole my mothers TV

Says, she watches to much, is just not healthy

"All my children" in the daytime, "Dallas" at night

Can't even see the game or the Sugar Ray fight

The bill collectors, they ring my phone

And scare my wife when I'm not home

Got a bum education, double-digit inflation

Can't take the train to the job, there's a strike at the station

Neon king kong standin' on my back

Can't stop to turn around, broke my sacroiliac

A midrange migraine, cancered membrane

Sometimes I think I'm going insane, I swear I might hijack a plane

Don't push me, 'cause I'm close to the edge

I'm trying not to lose my head

It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder

How I keep from going under

It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder

How I keep from going under

A child is born, with no state of mind

Blind to the ways of mankind

God is smiling on you, but he's frowning too

Because only God knows what you go through

You'll grow in the ghetto livin' second-rate

And your eyes will sing a song called deep hate

The places you play and where you stay

Looks like one great big alleyway

You'll admire all the number-book takers

Thugs, pimps and pushers and the big money-makers

Drivin' big cars, spendin' twenties and tens

And you'll wanna grow up to be just like them, huh

Smugglers, scramblers, burglars, gamblers

Pickpocket peddlers, even panhandlers

You say I'm cool, huh, I'm no fool

But then you wind up droppin' outta high school

Now you're unemployed, all null and void

Walkin' round like you're Pretty Boy Floyd

Turned stick-up kid, but look what you done did

Got sent up for a eight-year bid

Now your manhood is took and you're a Maytag

Spend the next two years as a undercover fag

Bein' used and abused to serve like hell

Til one day, you was found hung dead in the cell

But now your eyes sing the sad, sad song

Of how you lived so fast and died so young so

Don't push me, 'cause I'm close to the edge

I'm trying not to lose my head

Ha-ha-ha-ha

It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder

How I keep from going under

It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder

How I keep from going under