Articles
  News
  Music
  Photography
  Video
  Stories
  Buy
  Links
  Miscellaneous
  Do Something
  Circle!
  Mailing List
  Message Board

  maintained by:
   Brian Bieluch

  leave your thoughts/
  tribute to Harry:
   check out the guestbook

Custom Search

Home > Music > Basic Protest Song

Basic Protest Song
by Harry Chapin

CHORUS:

So your 13 and there's a silent scream out there,
And you can hear it.
Just your basic protest song.

Now your 16 and there's a danger in the air,
And you can see it.
Just your basic protest song.

Turnin' 20 and it's around you everywhere,
And you can feel it.
Just your basic protest song.

Now your 30 and it's to late now to care,
And you can taste it.
Just your basic protest song

Well, I just turned 13 don't know what I wanna be,
I don't have much experience but I'll tell you what I see.
When I hear the record sing and baby, baby I love you,
It seems to me we all got so much lovin left to do.

And at 16 I don't know to much but I'll tell you what I do know,
If you do not give a damn I'll tell you where to go.
There is something truly crazy with our patriotic song,
We know to wave the flag round the week begins a strong.

CHORUS

Oh now that I am 20 got my first full time job,
My boss, upstanding citizen, finds legal ways to rob.
They say forget what you believe forget what you have seen,
But I know I lost the best of me when I forgot my dreams.

I'm passin' on through 30 got two kids of my own,
Got a wife, house, a car, and dog but still I am alone.
And I'm tired of only selling cause it's myself that I sell,
I'm glad of always buying cause I can't buy it ourselves.

I know none of us is perfect I can see myself to well,
If we can't push for paradise we're settled in for hell.
CHORUS

Harry's Music

Bottom Line Encore Collection       [Amazon] [iTunes] Chapin Music       [iTunes] Cotton Patch Gospel       [iTunes] Dance Band On The Titanic*       [Amazon] [iTunes] Essentials       [Amazon] Gold Medal Collection       [Amazon] [iTunes] Greatest Stories Live*       [Amazon] [iTunes] Harry Chapin Tribute       [Amazon] Heads & Tales       [Amazon] [iTunes] Last Protest Singer       [Amazon] Legends Of Lost & Found*       [iTunes] Living Room Suite       [Amazon] [iTunes] On The Road To Kingdom Come       [Amazon] [iTunes] Portrait Gallery       [Amazon] [iTunes] Sequel       [iTunes] Short Stories       [Amazon] [iTunes] Sniper & Other Love Songs       [Amazon] [iTunes] Songwriter       [iTunes] Story of a Life       [Amazon] Verities & Balderdash       [Amazon] [iTunes] * = Highly Recommended

The Latest Release

Sniper & Other Love Songs   [iTunes] In 1972, Harry released Sniper & Other Love Songs. Thirty years would pass before the album would ever reach the CD format. Sniper was finally re-released in June, 2002. Originally given a working title of Sweet City Suite, the album tells the story of various characters one might run into in a city. The album features the original studio versions of Chapin classics "A Better Place to Be" and "Circle." But perhaps more importantly (as those songs are already well-distributed on compilation CDs), the album features seemingly lost Chapin stories, including "And the Baby Never Cries," "Burning Herself," "Barefoot Boy," and "Woman Child." Sniper is for the seasoned Chapin fan. New fans would do better to check out Greatest Stories Live. But for Chapin fans who have reached the level of the Dance Band on the Titanic album, this is the next step. Slightly over-produced and having a little of the "forced" feel that some of Harry's studio albums possess, this album does not capture the powerfully live Harry Chapin. Nonetheless, it captures Harry's great iconoclastic songwriting--Harry takes the story song to new heights here. But the album works best for those ready for it; don't buy it until you are ready to appreciate it!