Michelle Shocked - Graffiti Limbo Lyrics

Lay down your burdens
Lay down your cares
The Holy Virgin
She's gonna greet you up there

With a big can of spray paint
With a big blank wall
And I can guaran-damn tee ya
There ain't no cops around at all

Graffiti Limbo
Where do you go?
Graffiti Limbo
When there ain't no justice

I only speak for myself
But the word around town
Is that something's shaking
In the underground

I only speak for myself
But the word on the street
Is that the writing's on the wall
And the cop's on the beat

I wrote this song for a man named Michael Stewart
A young black man arrested while writing graffiti
On a subway wall in New York City
And while under arrest, surrounded by eleven white transit cops

Michael Stewart was strangled to death
And when his case went to court
Not one cop was found guilty
Because the coroner lost the evidence

You see, in order to determine
That Michael Stewart was strangled to death
The coroner had to use Michael Stewart's eyeballs
His eyes, as evidence

So now when I tell you
That it was Michael Stewart's eyes
That the coroner lost, do you know what I mean
When I tell you that justice is blind?

You can have your little Style Wars
You can keep your little dance
But those crazy writers
Don't stand a ghost of a chance

It's, "Color them Cons", Mayor Koch said
Call it a crime
It's steer clear of the engineer
Of the midnight special line