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Homeward Bound


That old man
Cut sugarcane in Jamaica
After he graduated from Sunday School,
Fed up with cutting cane
He came here for a better life.
He came here on a big ship
With big dreams
And two guineas,
He came here full of hope
With a great big smile,
He came here for the welcome
And the promise.
If his mother (bless her soul) could see him now
She would cry for her baby.


He don't understand political correctness
Give him the money and he's gone,
He did not study the oral tradition
Give him a stage and
He will explain.
He came here with his ambitions
And his Christianity,
She came here with a nursery qualification
And his Christianity,
Between them they produced six Rastafarians
Who called themselves Lost Africans.


When the old man puts on his old suit
He dances like a rude boy
His music is in his head,
Now he dreams of fresh sugar cane,
When the old man
Puts on his everyday face
He is only grinning and bearing,
He did forty years on the buses
And he never went to jail.


That old man
Was going home anyway,
All his Jamaica nights are in his head,
Fed up with the weather
He wants a better life,
All his English days he voted Labour
But he thinks that Labour didn't vote for him,
And now he only wants to see his saviour
Sweet Jamaica.


That old man
Shall die in Kensal Rise
He knows it,
You know it
But don't tell him.

Written by Benjamin Zephaniah

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