Black boy Lost in the dust And found in the heavens You understand what I'm saying? That your destiny is in eternity You never were originated And you'll never be destroyed Your destiny is with the people of the earth Who came out of you And now they are returning So does your job to prepare yourself For what is to come What is past is past But it'll last forever Because it prepared for you The future that you have before you When I was a little boy in Mississippi We sang every morning when we went to school And I could feel the energy of all my students We enjoyed school so much Because we sang every morning before we started At sundawn we would play a game called "hide and seek" And in that game One person would say this riddle Last night, night before, 24 robbers at my door I got up, and let 'em in Hit 'em in the head with a rolling pin And then we could go And seek out the first person we could find hiding And that person became it And then they would go and sing Last night, night before, 24 robbers at my door I got up, and let 'em in Hit 'em in the head with a rolling pin Now, when I was maybe 30, something I looked up at the stars one night
And it startled me because I felt something And no one told me that the stars have feelings And so it took me out of the world that we were all Sequested in And it allowed me to go on to the world of eternity And I've been there now, 50 years coming And it's taught me This, rolling pin gives us that authority Because it is the only symbol in the hands of Orion In ancient Egypt, Archimid It was called a scroll In the Bible, in the fourth and fifth chapter of the revelation It's called a man with a book in his hands But we found out it was the rolling pin that we were talking about The 24 robbers are the 24 stars surrounding the constellation called Orion And so, I got up, and let 'em in Means that he crossed the milky way Which is the galaxy that we are part of And I hit 'em in the head with a rolling pin Meant that, in that rolling pin is the knowledge of our eternity I think that, it's what it means to be a black boy To be lost, to be envious, and selfish To be misguided and confused But, somehow, to realize, that you're the whole package And it's your responsibility to find your eternity on this earth