Common - Book of Life Lyrics

I got so much trouble on my mind
So I take time
Out my day
To pray and I say
Now I lay me down to sleep
Hopin' that I keep
My soul
Peep, I'm gettin' old
And it's a cold cold world
And I ain't even got a bomber
Livin' with my momma
It's the same routine
Keep my room clean
I'm lookin' to do some new things but ain't shit to do
I'm twenty-two, catch
In the prime of my life
I have no time for a wife
I funnel through the tunnel
Disgruntled, tryin' to find me some light
In the rim of darkness
Alright you sing, I may not be the darkest
Brother
But I was always told to act my age and not my color
Knowin' that my color was that of the original
So now I sing the new negro spiritual
It goes get up stand up
Stand up for your rights
Get up stand up
Don't give up the fight

It's like how can you understand the pain
When you never had to stand under the rain
When it rains it pours, and it's about to come down hard
Thank God I found you

As I walk down the road of existence
I get resistance
From all angles
I tangle
For cash
Hopin' it'll last
'Til the end of the week
But all I eat is fast food
And you know how junk food goes right through ya
So I return to the Arab
And on the way back
I stop and the liquor store
Grab me a six pack
Knowin' that once I'm done with that I'll be back
To get some more
Once I get started I don't want to stop
And I can't turn around
Brew, I can't turn it down
Ironically I turn it up
My liver I burn it up
It's my life I live it up
The cup I gotta give it up
One day
I'm cruisin' down a one way street and I done passed fun day
Three blocks ago
It itself life is an obstacle
As I maneuver through the manure I try to be responsible
I want a job but I ain't lookin' how come
I ain't tryin' to degrade myself bein' nobody's Calvin
But I'm a couch bum what makes it bad I had incentive
But that disintegrated
To a state that's stagnated
I procrastinated
I can't recall a day without bein' intoxicated
Or blowed
Ain't dealin' with a full deck and any day I could fold
What makes it bad, I wasn't dealt that bad a hand
And I had a plan
But things didn't go through
The way they were supposed to
Thank God I found you

It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder
How I keep from goin' under, I ponder
And try to keep my concentration
In this idiotic nation
They say become I doctor, but I don't have the patients
Adjacent to that situation
I want an occupation
That I'm into
'Cause yet if I begin to
Live to my potential
I went to
School for fourteen years and my best teacher was experience
I reminisce and wish
I could go back in time to eighty-nine
When there was just sunshine
But now it's like I'm gettin' older to so much strain and stress
I don't think I'll ever be happy until I rest
In peace
Of mind
And find
Who I am
But thank God I found you