Song for Alicia

[00:11.16] Come 'round, you roving dancers if this speaks to the souls you were given
[00:17.50] If you, like me, have never believed in this kingdom of commerce we live in
[00:24.53] Language is a beginning, but language is never enough
[00:30.59] And the terrorists look like my mother and do most of the same kind of stuff
[00:37.43] Here's to Pedro, here's to Lolita, who kept looking at what they were seeing
[00:43.69] Like those New York signs in the sidewalk grime, no blacks, dogs, or Puerto Ricans
[00:50.55] Y que viva Alicia Rodríguez and the thousands before and since
[00:56.64] Who talk too fast, get pushed and push back and then choose to start talking again
[01:02.98] So it's ride, Alicia, ride
[01:06.58] Move, Alicia, move
[01:09.75] I would be Boricua even if I was born on the moon
[01:24.97] Alicia was put into prison
[01:28.07] No trial or charge or conviction
[01:31.25] Her crime was living the one way there is
[01:34.47] And that's screaming to get the tape off your lips
[01:37.82] I came here to sing for tomorrow
[01:41.19] To not let today get away
[01:44.24] 'Cause the signs may have changed, but the lines are the same
[01:47.45] And they're still blaming us for their shame
[01:50.65] Yeah, they're still blaming us for their need
[01:54.28] For a culture of ecstatic greed
[01:57.33] They still say what they said is not what they meant
[02:00.52] And it's our fault for listening
[02:03.84] My grandpa was a communist, they might've said a terrorist
[02:07.30] And when someone looks at what I've done
[02:10.38] I know songs won't seem like enough
[02:13.68] Songs are for sure not nearly enough
[02:16.42] So it's ride, Alicia, ride
[02:20.03] Move, Alicia, move
[02:23.43] I would be Boricua even if I was born on the moon
[02:28.80]
[02:43.41] The two groups convicted of American sedition are the Proud Boys and the Puerto Ricans
[02:50.19] We share a Wikipedia page, so what else can you say?
[02:56.81] It's ticker tape accumulation, neoliberal sublimation
[03:00.74] New precariat convinced that immigrants are corporations
[03:04.17] Hold the phone, just be patient while we burn your poets' pages
[03:07.46] While the doctor takes the medicine and tries to fuck the patients
[03:11.02] Oh, my God, they put her in a courtroom in Chicago
[03:14.03] They bound her hands behind her back, put tape across her mouth
[03:17.18] And when she screamed, the tape released, and she said what the world says
[03:20.70] "You cannot own a country, you do not own a country"
[03:23.91] And so two guards took her legs and held her to the floor
[03:27.03] While another punched her in the face and gagged her like before
[03:30.26] And she got 50 years and more and they never said what for
[03:37.27] She was pardoned in 1999, she's been saying the same thing the whole time
[03:44.09] And she's saying it still, and she's saying it now
[03:47.33] And she's saying it still, and she's saying it now
[03:50.48] So it's ride, Alicia, ride
[03:54.19] Move, Alicia, move
[03:57.86] I would be Boricua even if I was born on the moon
[04:03.73]