You Only Will Survive insight
This is a pre-production recording of "You Only Will Survive" to get a feel for where the song wants to go. Essentially a sketch of the song, it includes a simple piano, voice and beat arrangement with no studio effects like pitch correction, eq or other standard studio practices to clean up final versions of songs.
The lyrics look at the relationship between a boy and his father. The first verse recounts the last words the father told the boy before they stopped talking to one another. The second verse is the response from the boy turned successful man after his father attempts to contact him after 20 years of no communication between the two of them. The outro singing is the mantra the boy used to make it through his life in spite of the setbacks he has faced.
This song is slated for Wesley's upcoming EP Like Clutching Faith due in 2010.
Copyright 2008
Boy, living with your mom has really messed up your head
You’ve grown so soft, I wanna put you in a dress
It seems to me you’re always moping all the time
Sometimes I wonder if you’re even really mine
By your age, my dad and I were going toe to toe
Bet you’d crumble to the ground if I flicked you in the ear though
What’s that? Is that a tear in your eye?
Did daddy say something? Make baby wanna cry?
You better man up now or get bent over later
You mom and stepdad aren’t doing you a favor
Letting you stay in your bedroom hiding from the world
When you should be dominating football and getting all the girls
Skinny little thing, you’ll probably never be a man
Do you think you’ll get respect without a callous on your hands?
Well life taught me and it will teach you too
The types of hard knocks you don’t learn in fancy schools
Word for word dad, that was our goodbye
I had to put that on the record ‘cause it goes against the lie
that you told everybody in the old neighborhood
asking how could I betray you when you did all you could
So how is that dad? You didn’t pay any bills
the cost of our living was paid by momma plowing fields
And let’s not pretend you were moral support
You said I wasn’t yours when your friends were holding court
But now the bad seed has become a big tree
And though it’s been 20 years, suddenly you miss me
Well dad, how’s that for upper hand?
Wasn’t showing no mercy part of your measure of a man?
I guess you should be happy I’m content to be a boy
You get another chance, but don’t play me for a toy
‘Cause life taught me and it will teach you if you do
That love is not enough for me to take your abuse
Taken from my upcoming memoir "I Will Not Fall, Lest I Die", it gives a glimpse of how life in a poor neighborhood can affect the simplist of things, like a girlfriend coming over to visit. It also relates the internal struggles relating to violence that come after adapting to a bad environment, but doing so with a heavy heart.
The Doppler effect
of the police helicopter
has come
close enough
to become an issue.
Whoever has the cops
interested enough
to put a bird
in the sky
is close enough
to possibly
be on my block.
A look
at the clock
confirms
my girlfriend
will be here
any minute
parking in the street
a n d w a i t i n g
a t t h e s e c u r i t y g a t e
for me to buzz her in.
This neighborhood makes me weary,
but the thought of potential threat
to my girlfriend also arouses my cold anger.
I head down the stairs
to wait for her on the street
gun in hand
concealed in my hoody’s pocket.
Alert and straddling my dual nature
knowing I’m capable of enjoying violence
but also knowing I’m far more interested
in peace.
When trying to survive in an abusive household, your most vulnerable and valuable asset becomes your heart. In my case, it took one of my best friends to show me how precious my heart is. This one is dedicated to her.
Compressed between anvil
and hammer for years
my black coal heart
is hardened but clear.
Then came someone
as brilliant as you
making all of my facets
seem polished and new.
I’m honored and humbled
by the time that we spend
for your light scatters my dark
like leaves on wind.
I wrote this because too often as black people, we have a tendency to hurt ourselves in response to the adversities we face. Meanwhile, those that seek to do us harm, watch the "show", laughing, I'm sure.
They are pouring into the streets
Like
Floodwaters
Outrage spewing forth
Like
Category six rapids
Taking aim on their own
Like
Cannibals
As fires rise
Like
An ill-fitting black-gloved fist
Hearts surge in release
Like
The Joke is not on them
On a double date, I found myself stuck talking to the other boyfriend while the girls chatted away next to us. The guy quickly dismissed me as an inferior once it was established that I didn't have his pedigree
I didn't have his Ivy League education, his high paying job or any of the other things he hung his esteem on. This poem is a retort to his illusion that those things made him my better.
No, I’m not
slack jawed and listless.
My English isn’t broken
so don’t try and fix it.
The reason you don’t see me
is you’re looking beneath you,
but I live on the mountaintop
at YOUR BEST, we’re equal.
I don’t care that you walked
the Ivy League halls
did you wait for a diploma
before you stood tall?
Man, I have to admit
I didn’t expect this attack.
Even though you’re privileged
to me, you’re just black.