On Every Corner lyrics

Oh... death

Has been your lover

He has brought you

The edges of your life

And now you are looking over

And all we can say is

"It's gonna be all right"

And I am looking forward

To looking back on these days

When on every corner

Someone holds a sign

That says "I am homeless

I am hungry

And I have AIDS"

How will they define our generation

In the coming decades?

Who will tell the story

and what will they say?

Will they say the victims

Were thought of as criminals

While the guilty sat on high

Deciding their fate

Ticking off statistics in their spare time?

Tell me, which is the crime?

May you never test positive

Pregnancy, HIV

May you never be the receptacle of blame

May you never be the scapegoat

For a whole world full of shame

May you never be fighting for your life

And at the same time

Have to fight for your name

There are too few who open both eyes

We sit back in our easy chairs

And we try to sympathize

Whether from the point of a needle or

The edge of our beds

We too, like too many others

Could be dead

Our actions

Will define us

Before a single definition can be said

Yeah, so what if God is testing us?

What if that's true?

What are you going to do?

What is the answer to you?

Oh... death

Has been your lover

He has brought you

The edges of your life

And now you are looking over

And all we can say is

"It's gonna be all right"

And I am looking forward

To looking back on these days

When on every corner

Someone holds a sign

That says "I am homeless

I am hungry

And I have AIDS"

• Artist:Ani DiFranco
• Album:Not So Soft (1991)