As a naive kid growing up in a small Northwestern Colorado town, I was oblivious to just how much evil and injustice was out there in the real world. I got into rap music in 1981, mainly because my older brother had already turned me on to Funk and R&B, and the rap of that era just sounded good to me.
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five was one of my favorite rap groups in the 80s. I'm the type of person that really listens to lyrics in songs, and the Furious Five started opening my eyes in ways I never imagined.
The first time I heard them rap about situations involving police brutality, I thought it was surely a lighthearted jab at authority. However, my mind was opened as a pre-teen and suddenly news articles or short news spots on the exact same situations they were rapping about, started catching my eye. What's more, it seemed to me that no one wanted to talk about these uncomfortable situations, or quickly dismissed them. When they did make it to media, it also seemed like they were buried or minimized.
The other day I was listening to my 80s rap playlist for old times sake, and started singing along to 'Sign of the Times'. I suddenly stopped and realized everything they were rapping about are the same exact issues people still ponder on to this very day. Without further ado.. read the lyrics for yourself to see the correlation.
A side note:
You'd think you could find everything on the internet in 2021, but I simply could not find the full and accurate lyrics to this song anywhere online. I listened to the song myself to fill in the gaps, and I think I nailed them down, with the exception of only one lyric at the end of the second verse which I've italicized.
Sign of the Times - Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
Now listen up 'cause I got a little something to say
To educate you bout the life in the streets today
Now everybody's confused about what to do
and what this world is coming to
Chorus-
Sign of the Times. Can really Blow your mind.
Inflation rises every time that opportunity knocks
The rent's crazy for the house the size of a box
It's an arm and a leg to keep clothes on your back
The daily run, push and shove, you just can't hack
The payday comes around you go to pick up your check
The money never seems to get you out of debt
Hinkley shot the president, he had nothing to lose
? - when a journey to see a brother eyewitness knew - ?
Cops shooting up all of the citizens
To find out the next day the guy's innocent
Young girls being raped and taken by force
All the people getting married just to get divorced
Working for minimum wage, one foot in the grave
And all the rich folks screaming they're underpaid
Daddy's in jail doing twenty to life
He has a family back home, five kids and a wife
Girls run away from home with no way to survive
And have to sell her body to stay alive
Nowadays in the trains and the buses you see
People fighting for seats with the elderly
Momma down by the bedside on her knee
So much crime it ain't safe for her to walk the street
Because times are hard, either do or die
You can run and ignore, but you can't hide
Politicians like to max and relax
Sayin 'Vote for me, and I know what to tax'
Sipping on Martinis with a little coke
and then the headline reads 'Drug overdose'
Magazines expose our beauty queen
The American Dream, what does it mean?
For tis' of thee in our country
Don't take things as they appear to be
You say babies cry by their mothers side
Sweet land of liberty for spacious skies
We got actors running for president!
So what the hell's going wrong with this government?
No hurt is worse than a mother's pain
when the love for her child goes down the drain
Been used and abused but would never expect
that the child that she birthed would give her no respect
Car dealer wanted to make quick cash
Try to buy the coke and don't do got over glass
Nowadays kids are growing up too fast
Learning more in the street than they do in class
Dealing drugs on the corner at the age of ten
I say, if you go to jail, you got to stay in
Speeding in the fast lane, going no place
And when it's over, you see that it was all a waste
Found with a letter by your bedside
you ended your life, committed suicide
Mom is searching in the trash for bottles and cans
while the kids stood by with outstretched hands
While a man holds a dollar and so must pray
in this land of the free, home of the brave
You see people getting shot over nickels and dimes
Don't you know that's all a sign of the times?
I just shake my head and laugh at parts of this song. I mean c'mon.. Actors running for president, rich people screaming they're underpaid? I've seen two actors run for president in my lifetime and win. And.. just today, a bipartisan group of politicians passed a new law that.. SURPRISE, yet again protects the rich from paying more taxes. Other parts of the song make me shake my somberly shake my head in disgust with society. Working for minimum wage, one foot in the grave, and lets not even start talking about police.
I've always strived to keep it 'light' on this blog, but as you get older you find yourself pondering on life. You begin to analyze history, politics, poems, the meaning of life, your own existence and even song lyrics. Thanks for reading another one of my cathartic ramblings. I'm sure it won't be the last.
By the way, here's the video below.
(in case you'd like to reminisce about just how much rap has changed)