Honey D'ya Think? - Janis Ian

So you want to be an artist

And the only way to do it is to suffer

And you want to be cool

So you fake it 'til you can grow upper

Ah, yes, you’ve got money in your pants

Why don’t you come in from the street and dance?

Or are the pleasures of the peasants

Too lowly for your glance?

Honey, d’you think you’ve got a right to sing the blues

Because you live in the street and have no shoes?

You choose, you lose, and it don’t give you

The right to sing the blues

You want to be cool

You wear your shades across your face, you never smile

Anybody seeing you

Would think that you have paid your dues, and now you’re retired

You’re all against the Viet Nam war, you make it plain

You go to all the marches in an ecstasy of pain

But you couldn’t spare a quarter for a blind man on the corner

Standing there in the rain

Honey, d’you think you’ve got a right to sing the blues

Because you live in the street and have no shoes?

You choose, you lose, and it don’t give you

The right to sing the blues

Yes, you want to be a Negro

Try to prove that you have soul, but it’s all gone

And you want to be a martyr

So you moan about your problems just like old Uncle Tom

Ah, honey, don’t you see

Blues is more than just a fabricated mystery

You’ve got to get out of it to get into it

And then you can sing

Honey, d’you think you’ve got a right to sing the blues

Because you live in the street and have no shoes?

You choose, you lose, and it don’t give you

The right to sing the blues