This week’s theme for Song lyric Sunday is ‘education’. There’s Alice Cooper’s ‘School’s Out’ or Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick In The Wall’, of course, but I can honestly say that I think this has both of them well beaten.
From the album ‘Déja Vû’, released in 1970.
You, who are on the road,
Must have a code
That you can live by.
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a goodbye.
Teach your children well.
Their father’s hell
Did slowly go by.
And feed them on your dreams.
The one they pick’s the one you’ll know by.
Don’t you ever ask them, “Why?”
If they told you, you would cry.
So, just look at them and sigh,
And know they love you.
Can you hear and do you care
And can’t you see
We must be free
To teach your children
What you believe in,
Make a world that we can live in?
And you, of tender years,
Can’t know the fears
That your elders grew by.
And so please help them with your youth.
They seek the truth
Before they can die.
Teach your parents well.
Their children’s hell
Will slowly go by.
And feed them on your dreams.
The one they pick’s the one you’ll know by.
Don’t you ever ask them, “Why?”
If they told you, you would cry.
So, just look at them and sigh
And know they love you.
Written by Graham Nash
This has always been a favorite of mine, mostly because CS&N asked Jerry Garcia to play pedal steel on this tune.
Always a favorite ☺️👍