Ritchie Havens was like me; he believed that if you highlighted the wrongs we could set about putting them right. He wrote this song in the early seventies and every word of it is just as valid now.
The world is full of corporate greed, selfishness and the relentless pursuit of wealth at all costs. The forest are chopped, rivers polluted and wild-life butchered. People are exploited and no one is stopping to look at the beauty, experience the awe.
Why in this age of miracles have we still got rampant overpopulation? Poverty? Racism? A third World? Destruction and pollution? Climate change? War? Religious fanaticism?
The answer is simple: the wealthy psychopaths who direct things want it that way so that they can cream off even more! The top one percent own half the world! They’re after the other half!
What you gonna do about me?
What you gonna do about me?
You poison my sweet waters; you chop down my green trees
And the food you feed my children is the cause of that ill disease
My world is slowly falling down and the air is not fit to breathe
And those of us who care enough, we have to do something
Oh, what you gonna do about me
Oh, what you gonna do about me
Your newspapers – they just put you on
They never tell you the whole story
They just put your young ideas down
I was wondering if this was the end of their pride and glory?
Oh, what you gonna do about me
Oh, what you gonna do about me
I work in your factories and I study in your schools
I fill your penitentiaries and your military too
I can feel the future trembling as the word is passed around
If you stick up for what you do believe in, be prepared to be shot down
Oh, what you gonna do about me
Oh, what you gonna do about me
I feel just like a stranger in the land where I was born
And I live just like an outlaw; I’m always on the run
Always on the run, they got me always on the run
Oh, your soldiers smoke marijuana, you can’t put them behind your walls
Because most of what you taught them to do is against most of your laws
We’re all fugitives from injustice now but we’re going to be free
Because your rules and regulations don’t do the things for me.
Oh, what you gonna do about me
Oh, what you gonna do about me
You may be the stronger now, but my time will come around
You keep adding to my numbers as you shoot my people down
I can feel the future trembling as the word is passed around
We are going to stick up for what we do believe in, and we’re prepared to be shot down
Oh, what you gonna do about me
Oh, what you gonna do about me
I feel just like a stranger in the land where I was born
And I live just like an outlaw; I’m always on the run
Always on the run, they got me always on the run