Dignity (Piano Demo from 'Oh Mercy' sessions)

Fat man lookin’ in a blade of steel

Thin man lookin’ at his last meal

Hollow man lookin’ in a cottonfield

For dignity

Wise man lookin’ in a blade of grass

Young man lookin’ in the shadows that pass

Poor man lookin’ through painted glass

For dignity

Somebody got murdered on New Year’s Eve

Somebody said dignity was the last to leave

I went into the city, went into the town

Went into the land of the midnight sun

Searchin’ high, searchin’ low

Searchin’ everywhere I know

Askin’ the cops wherever I go

Have you seen dignity?

Blind man breakin’ out of a trance

Puts both his hands in the pockets of chance

Hopin’ to find one circumstance

Of dignity

Stranger stares down into the light

From a platinum window in the Mexican night

Searching every bloodsucking thing in sight

For dignity

I went down where the vultures feed

I would’ve gone deeper, but there wasn’t any need

Heard the tongues of angels and the tongues of men

They all sounded no difference to me

Soul of a nation is under the knife

Death is standing in the doorway of life

In the next room a man fighting with his wife

Over dignity