The Kelly Song Collective

The Ballad Of Omar Dixon

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You don’t know my given name

but you might know my last

She said ‘There’s some legacy there’

In my family past

 

South Bishop Street

Is the place that I come from

Uniquely American art form

The post-war-negro slum

 

What you celebrate

Call culture or the Blues

Was not in my vocabulary

I was born to lose

 

16 years is not a child

And not a ‘Back Door Man’

But old enough to take a life

‘I Can’t Understand’

 

I didn’t squeeze the trigger

I didn’t hold the gun

There’s no ‘Evil’ in my heart

I am ‘The Seventh Son’

 

Could I ‘…contribute like my grandfather’?

I don’t dance and sing

If you lived where I lived

You’d be on this wing

 

Here comes Jesse Jackson

And Oprah Winfrey too

My story is not black and white

Only shades of blue

 

They convicted me of murder

And I didn’t do the crime

I don’t sing at church

Just wrong place, wrong time

 

2 hours to reach a verdict

‘Cause I had killed the Christ

Judas from the south side

Made you all feel nice

 

Don’t shed nothing for me

Don’t ‘Sit And Cry The Blues’

I know ‘When The Lights Go Out’

I had the chance to choose

 

I got out now I’m back in

Until I’m 85

It’s a ‘Crazy Mixed Up World’

But I’ll make it out alive

 

They killed 500 last year

‘I’m Ready’ for it to stop

‘I Ain’t Superstitious’

The other shoe has got to drop

 

My name is Omar Dixon

Convicted of a crime

They say I killed an athlete

A young star in his prime

 

My grandfather is a legend

The king of Chicago blues

I’m proud to have his name

Now I understand those shoes

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© Michael Worthington Music 2014