Midnight Passenger

I stepped out on a celluloid night
that flickered on a black and white reel
Looking for something that I could not explain
I could only feel
These were the songs upheld by the shades
that spoke to me as I left town
Israelites, The Harder they Come, 54-47*
I hear them now
And the words of the prophets never sounded
as good as the echo of a hard one drop
To be forever enslaved by a sound the creator
made- don't let it stop

Come again, midnight passenger
There to accompany down
To the end of the souls tlost avenue
Feel it now

I kept walking in the dust all night
Looking for a diamond in the crush
Halfway under in bars like a shop that was going
down-or coming up
It was not the sun that stung, but the feel of loss
and the voice of suffering and fate
Till I just stopped listening to the chatter of all
those yesterdays- crime pays

We will show up with all our secret problems
and even if we can't find land
There's a tone written into soul songs
that understands
we will be free