Hey man if you think this whole thing’s funny
You’re right, sometimes I also have a laugh
But just read between the lines and you’ll be sure to find
The made-up parts are less than half
It’s a lousy country we’re living here in
Can’t even get its act on the road
So let’s find a place down in the islands
Or else we’ll really die before we get old
‘Cause black is white, darkness light
Day is night, wrong is right
Black is white, black is white
Repeat it over and over and it becomes right
Everything here becomes a federal case
Basket case, mental case
Cold case, hard case
Open and shut case, head case
FBI case, domestic spy case
Ex-presidential alleged criminal case
The best case I say is the Blues Briefcase
So get off my case
‘Cause black is white, darkness light
Day is night, wrong is right
Black is white, back is white
Say it with a straight face and all is right
It seems that every director who has an agenda
And wants to be up there with the best
Makes some shicy movie to tell sisters to sleep with cousins
After all, what’s wrong with incest?
‘Cause love, peace, and humanist understanding
Are higher values than any others
Well, the real truth is they humanistically understand the terrorist
‘Cause they don’t wanna love or make peace with their brothers
‘Cause black is white, darkness light
Day is night, wrong is right
Straight is curled, free is furled
Boy is girl, screwed up world
X is Y, truth is lie
You succeeded to deceive and now I believe
That black is white, black is white
You drilled it into my head so what you say must be right
©2023 The Hesh Inc.
I originally wrote this in the mid-1980s in the thick of my stint in the Israeli army, amidst a whole series of political scandals then rocking the country (seriously, when does that not happen?) as part of a three-song "triptych" sandwiched by "Somewhere Out in Tiza Nabi" on one side and "Love Is Just A Cannon Shot Away" on the other. I generally shy away from topical songs such as this, since once the scandal du jour boils over the song becomes instantly dated, and that's indeed what happened to the original version of this song once the news cycle focused elsewhere and life went on.
However, every now and then things spill over to the point where I can't withhold commentary, and so I took this out of the old songwriting notebook and tweaked it just a little bit to reflect some events happening concurrently with this posting. It didn't need much tweaking, which is a commentary in and of itself about how very little actually changes. There is, in fact, nothing new under the sun.
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that change darkness into light, and light into darkness; that change bitter into sweet, and sweet into bitter ~Isaiah 5:20.
Musically, the song resumes the "Middle Eastern" type of rhythm started in "Tiza Nabi" and then rolls into a Lou Reed–type monologue before ending abruptly with the sound of a cannon shot, signaling the beginning of the next song in the triptych. All in all, an interesting idea for an EP ... but by the time I'd get around to recording this song (and "Cannon Shot"), the world will have moved on to the next thing. So ... maybe it will get recorded, maybe it won't. And may things get better before they get a whole lot worse.