Black Rose

(album: Church Clothes - 2012)

In my garden in my garden
To keep and care it you've got to water it
To keep and care it you've got to water it

She ain't never seen garden of Eden
Only seen garden of bleeding
And some are gonna lie and hate and make her feel like she's a heathen
She ain't never seen garden of Eden
Only seen garden of bleeding
And some are gonna lie and hate and make her feel like she's a heathen

Black rose black rose
Black rose black rose
Black rose black rose
Black rose black rose

Their roots dirty but their petals stay pretty
Somebody tried to take the purity say they unworthy
The black rose grows deep in the city streets
But them stems still peak up under the concrete yeah
Bleak is around looking life but them never seen a flower
Grow under the moonlight
Mama had me readin Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice
I was looking for identity they stole mine twice
So I turn to the rude boy gangsters first
But the bad man withers and returns to the earth
Now it's ashes to ashes dirt to dirt
A black rose without a chance to grasp her worth

She ain't never seen garden of Eden
Only seen garden of bleeding
And some are gonna lie and hate and make her feel like she's a heathen
No cry for me cry for me this is how it goes but Jah knows all though yuh was my black rose

Black rose black rose
Black rose black rose
Black rose black rose
Black rose black rose
Black rose black rose
Black rose black rose

Man the school system it fail us, and the government won't bail us
Out of this hell we in man it seems they want to kill us
There's blood pan di side walk blood pan di doors
There's blood up on them ceilings why there's pan di floor
No one to keep and care us our fathers too embarrassed
To show us he's a failure so mama's a single parent
Them children grow without the fertilizer that they needed
And the black rose grows in a garden fulla weeds and needles and evil
But God sent people who reflect the light of the sun they get it done
The rose grows cold wind blows through the streets
And the ice on the leaves so heavy she gets weak
And there's not a helping hand upon the scene to be seen
And when all seems lost the Gardener intervenes
He handles her with care
And he show her she a queen
And then thorns are a defense mechanism she'll never need

Black rose black rose
Black rose black rose
Black rose black rose
Black rose black rose
Black rose black rose