Charlie Curtis-Beard - Dance lyrics

Dance I envision a woman sitting on a church bench by a pulpit listening to the melodic melodies in her ear drums as she uses all her strength to raise one hand and swing it to the beat I remember learning how to dance as a kid my dad would rock ba** kicks and smack the high hats off his drum kits and me and my brother would rock back and forth and rock back and forth like we didn't know what was going to happen to our bodies as the music started to converge with our souls so we sat there and rocked back and forth like our ancestors did whilst being shipped to an unknown land in a poorly constructed boat infected with sickness and shackles sat three to a bunk as they bunked heads rocking back and forth from the repetitive motion of the sea they, too, didn't know what was going to happen to their bodies so we let music flow projecting images of freedom back from the routes of when bongos hit the soul harder than one nail and two blacks and three beats and four railroad tracks I was in fifth grade when I learned about rhythm and beats I learned how to move my feet iconic and electronic like electrons when I did this music would start to circle around my gravitational pull gravitated for a moment as if I was defying laws of physic I was tripping over my own feet and my feet formed callus swaying from ballads of birds tweedle-leeing and humming harmoniously in railroad boxcars from workers about a hundred years ago on railroad tracks seeing and stomping on their feet all day their feet formed calluses from driving a steady ba** they used to hate us for walking on rails to freedom they used to hate us for walking on rails of progression and patients for pardoning equal protection and moonwalking on progression I was 13 when Michael Jackson pa**ed saw glimpses of him on TV mimicking his dance moves in my basement I always liked the idea of moonwalking because it looked like you were moving forward when you were really moving backwards I couldn't get it down my dance moves could never move backwards my dance moves would always progress and profess from railroad tracks to a subway in the Bronx with spray paint in the hallways while I'm breakdancing breakdancing because sticks and stones may break my bones but pops and locks can't break me fade me dissipate me I'm a rebel in the making No I'm a runaway slave on a prom night you can't forget with a long lost wife you can't forget haven't seen each other since they separated only get 10 seconds to embrace each other dancing to the music of the night before shotguns can hit them in the back k**ing in an instant No I'm an african dying from the sickness of the sea as the sea pushes me back and forth and I always missed it when my mom would rock me to sleep No I'm my Grandma way back in Alabama when she was shaken by an explosion that k**ed four young black girls in 1963 something stayed inside her veins and was pa**ed down to me Dance chose me because Dance chooses people that don't have a voice of their own and after three strokes I think my grandma found hers I can still see her using all her strength to raise one hand … and swing it to the beat