Understand Under

I wanna play like Jelly Roll Morton

Write like Waldo Emerson

Sing like Odetta

Say, "give me liberty" like Patrick Henry

Escape like Houdini on the very last breath

I want to fly straight as an arrow,

Crooked sparrow

Oh

I wanna swallow fire

I wanna paint the town red

I want to understand, understand, under

And, hold the whole world up over my head

I want to die in battle

Grow old with the wife

Catch every kind of fish

Lord, I'd give anything to play the fiddle

I want to know the recipe for every dish

I wanna bust some moves on the dance floor

I wanna sit in the back of a debaucherous den

I wanna live to be a hundred and twenty

Tell wondrous tales to my grandchildren

I wanna be a stand up comedian

I wanna start a new twist in philosophy

I want be a cowboy and an Indian

I wanna be an E.E. Cummings' apostrophe

I wanna be fluent in every language

I wanna be painter

The next Abbie Hoffman

I wanna be the mayor of my home town

In Blue Ridge Mountains

I gotta get there more often

I wanna take the plunge to the depths of madness

I wanna sit in the clear like a Buddhist monk

I wanna turn the tables like Jesus

I wanna cross all borders in a smuggler's trunk

I wanna write code like a rogue programmer

I wanna sell potions on the side of the street

I wanna survive some grizzly summer,

Learning which berries are safe to eat

I wanna do tricks in a biplane smokin'

And be able to fix anything that gets broken

I wanna hang on when the question is spoken

I wanna let go when the wind is blowin'

I want a light bulb to go off in my head like Edison

I wanna get my brain around what Einstein said

I wanna understand, understand, under

And, hold the whole world up over my head

I wanna understand, understand, under

And, hold the whole world

I wanna understand, understand, under

And, hold the whole world