On Every Corner lyrics

Song information

Artist: Ani Difranco
Album: Not So Soft

Lyrics

Death has been your lover
He has brought you
The edges of your life
And now you are looking over
And all we can say is
It's gonna be all right
And I am looking forward to looking back on these days
When on every corner
Someone holds a sign
That says I'm homeless
I'm hungry and
I have aids

How will they define our generation in the coming decades
Who will tell the story and what will they say?
Will they say the victims were thought of as criminals
While the guilty sat on high deciding their fate
Ticking off statistics in their spare time
Tell me, which is the crime?

May you never test positive
Pregnancy
Hiv
May you never be the receptacle of blame
May you never be the scapegoat for a whole world full of shame
May you never be fighting for your life
And at the same time have to fight for your name

There are too few who open both eyes
We sit back in our easy chairs
And we try to sympathize
Whether from the point of a needle or the edge of our beds
We too, like too many others, could be dead
Our actions will define us
Before a single definition can be said
Yeah, so what if god is testing us
What if that's true
What are you going to do