'80s Hip Hop - 'Sign of the Times' by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

So the older I get, the more I realize the world really hasn't changed much over the course of my 50 trips around the sun. Without getting too deep, there has always been pestilence, famine, war and death. Now with smart technology, its in our faces all of the time. Whatever ends of the earth bad things are currently taking place on, we now hear about it. The world has definitely gotten a lot smaller. Which brings me to the topic of this post, the 1985 song called 'Sign of the Times' by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. 

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 of the sound and how different it was from anything else on the radio at the time, and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five was one of my favorite rap groups. 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 that 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 some old school rap 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 would be able to find everything on the internet in 2021, but I could not find the full and accurate lyrics anywhere online. I listened to the song myself to fill in the gaps, and succeeded with the exception of only one lyric 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 about the life in the streets today
Now everybody's confused about what to do
and what this world is coming to

Inflation rises every time 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 jury to see a brother eyewitness news - ?

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

Say 'Vote for me, I know what to tax'

Sipping their 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 see babies cry while their mothers sigh

Sweet land of liberty for spacious skies

You got actors running for president!

So what the hell's going on 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 grows up and gives her no respect

Car dealer wanted to make quick cash

Try to buy the coke and don't to 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 it was all a waste

Found with a letter by your bedside

end of July, committing 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?

Great song that brings back a lot of memories. If you know the missing lyrics let me know. I'd love to update them here!