Song For Alicia

Come 'round, you roving dancers if this speaks to the souls you were given
If you, like me, have never believed in this kingdom of commerce we live in
Language is a beginning, but language is never enough
And the terrorists look like my mother and do most of the same kind of stuff

Here's to Pedro, here's to Lolita, who kept looking at what they were seeing
Like those New York signs in the sidewalk grime, no blacks, dogs, or Puerto Ricans
Y que viva Alicia Rodríguez and the thousands before and since
Who talk too fast, get pushed and push back and then choose to start talking again

So it's ride, Alicia, ride
Move, Alicia, move
I would be Boricua even if I was born on the moon

Alicia was put into prison
No trial or charge or conviction
Her crime was living the one way there is
And that's screaming to get the tape off your lips

I came here to sing for tomorrow
To not let today get away
'Cause the signs may have changed, but the lines are the same
And they're still blaming us for their shame

Yeah, they're still blaming us for their need
For a culture of ecstatic greed
They still say what they said is not what they meant
And it's our fault for listening

My grandpa was a communist, they might've said a terrorist
And when someone looks at what I've done
I know songs won't seem like enough
Songs are for sure not nearly enough

So it's ride, Alicia, ride
Move, Alicia, move
I would be Boricua even if I was born on the moon

The two groups convicted of American sedition are the Proud Boys and the Puerto Ricans
We share a Wikipedia page, so what else can you say?

It's ticker tape accumulation, neoliberal sublimation
New precariat convinced that immigrants are corporations
Hold the phone, just be patient while we burn your poets' pages
While the doctor takes the medicine and tries to fuck the patients

Oh, my God, they put her in a courtroom in Chicago
They bound her hands behind her back, put tape across her mouth
And when she screamed, the tape released, and she said what the world says
"You cannot own a country, you do not own a country"
And so two guards took her legs and held her to the floor
While another punched her in the face and gagged her like before
And she got 50 years and more and they never said what for

She was pardoned in 1999, she's been saying the same thing the whole time
And she's saying it still, and she's saying it now
And she's saying it still, and she's saying it now

So it's ride, Alicia, ride
Move, Alicia, move
I would be Boricua even if I was born on the moon