John William Boone (1864-1927) world-renowned Ragtime Pianist
learn moreSung by Michael Jackson Man
Release, 1988
I’m Gonna Make A Change,
For Once In My Life
It’s Gonna Feel Real Good,
Gonna Make A Difference
Gonna Make It Right . .
Ooh…ooh…ooh…ooh…
Ooh…ooh…ooh…ooh…
Wind in your hair, sun on your skin
You’re looking good, girl, all over again
Hey there, Miss Brown
I want you to know I love you
Brown as the sand, you’re soft as the shore
You’re leaving me hungry, I’m crying for more
Ooh, we, baby, girl, you’re such a score
And I want you to know that, you know what, girl
I love you
I bet you didn’t know that, girl
You didn’t know that
I need you
Right now, baby, right now, baby
And I bet you didn’t know that ebony eyes
Ooh…ooh…hoo…ooh…ooh…ooh…ooh…ooh…ooh…
Ooh…hoo
You are disdainful and magnificant–
Your perfect body and your pompous gait,
Your dark eyes flashing solemnly with hate,
Small wonder that you are incompetent
To imitate those whom you so despise–
Your sholders towering high above the throng,
Your head thrown back in rich, barbaric song,
Palm trees and mangoes stretched before your eyes.
Let others toil and sweat for labor’s sake
And wring from grasping hands their meed of gold.
Why urge ahead your supercilious feet?
Scorn will efface each footprint that you make.
I love your laughter arrogant and bold.
You are too splendid for
Lift every voice and sing Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise, High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,
Facing the rising sun, of our new day begun
Let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod, Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat, Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
Today,
The sea has its own religion,
It is as blue
As an acori bead
I rubbed in my hand.
I think
Of swimming out
for miles
and miles in prayer.
I think
Of never struggling back
In doubt.
As though
In a world like this
Love starts over and over again…
Reprinted from Dreamer (Pittsburgh Carnegie Mellon Press) 1990.
learn moreThere is music in me, the music of a peasant people.
I wander through the levee, picking my banjo and singing my songs of the cabin and the field.
At last chance saloon I am as welcome as the Violets in March; there is always food and drink for me there, and the dimes of those who love honest music.
Behind the railroad tracks the little children clap their hands and love me as they love Kris Kringle.
But I fear that I am a failure.
Last night a woman called me a troubadour.
What is a troubadour?
And where
do your parents
summer?
she asked him.
The front porch
he replied…
At night while whitey sleeps
the heart of a thousand
African fires burns across my chest
I hear the beat of a war drum
dancing from a distant land
dancing across a mighty water telling me to strike
Enchanted by this wild call
I hurl a brick through
a store front window and disappear…
Reprinted by permission of Norman Jordan.
learn moreFollow the drinking gourd!
Follow the drinking gourd.
For the old man is awaiting for to carry you to freedom
If you follow the drinking gourd.
When the sun comes back and the first quail calls,
Follow the drinking gourd,
For the old man is awaiting for to carry you to freedom
If you follow the drinking gourd.
The riverbank makes a very good road,
The dead trees will show you the way,
Left foot, peg foot traveling on,
Following the drinking gourd.
The river ends between two hills,
Follow the drinking gourd,
There’s another river on the other side,
Follow the drinking gour
