Gil Scott-Heron - On Coming From A Broken Home (Pt. 2) lyrics

And so my life has been guided All the love I needed was provided And through my mothers sacrifices I saw where her life went To give more than birth to me, but life to me And this ain't one of the clichés about black women being strong Cause hell if you're weak, you're gone But life courage determined to do more than just survive And too many homes have a missing woman or man Without the feeling of missing love Maybe they are homes that are hurt But they are no real lives that hurt without reach But not broken Unless the homes of soldiers – stationed overseas Or lost in battles or broken Unless the homes of firemen, policemen, construction workers, seamen, railroad men, truckers, pilots Who lost their lives – but not what their lives stood for... Because men die, men lose, they are lost and they leave And so do women ... I came from what they called "a broken home" But they ever really called it "a house" They would have known how wrong they were We were working on our lives and our homes Dealing with what we had, not what we didn't have My life has been guided by women But because of them – I am the man. God bless you mama – and thank you.