Yeah, Man!

Everytime I hear Todd Snider's "Ballad of the Kingsmen" on XPN, I just stop & listen & go "yeah, man!"

"You know, every ten years of so, our country and some other little country, we start firing all our newest weapons at each other for some reason or another. Right or wrong, like it or not, it happens, and when it happens, people get shot.
When people get shot, they show it on the news a lot, every evening at six o'clock, and you don't even have to be eighteen to see it. You don't even have to be in first grade, first grade where they teach the kid the pride they say they'll need to thrive in a world where only the strong will survive, so he's taught the art of more to compare to and to keep score, Monday through Friday while he stares at the floor, until Sunday, they make him go to school once more, only this time they make him wear a suit and a tie, and make him listen to some guy who claims to know where people go when they die tell them that only the meek are going to inherit the earth.
Well, shit, by this time, the kid doesn't know what anything is worth. "

It's one of those really brilliant talking songs that I just love to pieces. Maybe that's why I don't have the typical honky aversion to rap - I love listening to what people have to say in a rhythmic & rhyming style. It's only been in the past couple years that I've learned to listen to the layers of instruments behind the words.