The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Album: Small Talk at 125th and Lenox (1970)
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  • You will not be able to stay home, brother
    You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out
    You will not be able to lose yourself on skag
    And skip out for beer during commercials, because
    The revolution will not be televised

    The revolution will not be televised
    The revolution will not be brought to you
    By Xerox in four parts without commercial interruptions
    The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon blowing a bugle
    And leading a charge by John Mitchell, General Abrams, and Spiro Agnew
    To eat hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary
    The revolution will not be televised

    The revolution will not be brought to you by the Schaefer Award Theatre
    And will not star Natalie Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia
    The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal
    The revolution will not get rid of the nubs
    The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner, because
    The revolution will not be televised, brother

    There will be no pictures of you and Willie Mae
    Pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run
    Or trying to slide that color TV into a stolen ambulance
    NBC will not be able predict the winner
    At 8:32 on report from twenty-nine districts
    The revolution will not be televised

    There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers on the instant replay
    There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers on the instant replay
    There will be no pictures of Whitney Young
    Being run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process
    There will be no slow motion or still lifes of Roy Wilkins
    Strolling through Watts in a red, black, and green liberation jumpsuit
    That he has been saving for just the proper occasion

    Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville Junction
    Will no longer be so damn relevant
    And women will not care if Dick finally got down with Jane
    On Search for Tomorrow
    Because black people will be in the street looking for a brighter day
    The revolution will not be televised

    There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock news
    And no pictures of hairy armed women liberationists
    And Jackie Onassis blowing her nose
    The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb or Francis Scott Keys
    Nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom Jones, Johnny Cash
    Engelbert Humperdinck, or The Rare Earth
    The revolution will not be televised

    The revolution will not be right back
    After a message about a white tornado
    White lightning, or white people
    You will not have to worry about a dove in your bedroom
    The tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl
    The revolution will not go better with Coke
    The revolution will not fight germs that may cause bad breath
    The revolution will put you in the driver's seat

    The revolution will not be televised
    Will not be televised
    Will not be televised
    Will not be televised
    The revolution will be no re-run, brothers
    The revolution will be live Writer/s: Gil Scott-Heron
    Publisher: Round Hill
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

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