The Revolution Will Not Be Televised [2015]
adapted by Josh Adler, original by Gil Scott Heron
You will not be able to stay home dear sister.
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 is not for sale.
The revolution will crack through your screens
until you get out, do something, and write it down.
The revolution raised you on stories 8 lines long, then put you to work hittin’ the ones, and now your words highlight contradictions like: America vs. Reality vs. Life vs. The Way vs. The Way Things Were.
Now you are the bloody honey and milk of stars.
The revolution has survived over 500 years of mayhem and tyranny, can solve a jigsaw puzzle without any picture on the box, recognize rattlers, sharks, sandwich porn, and #Drumpf chumps.
The revolution can see through all your self-created patterns and hear your silent majority.
The revolution is the antibody that will not fail.
The revolution will not be televised so long as you can still resist and rebuild my brothers and sisters.
The revolution is an ancient starting point to travel any distance toward any destination, and we are HERE: TOGETHER
to tear out the fences of corruption with certainty, and step out
with a new strain of serenity — formerly known as swagger.
The revolution will not be televised, but it will lead away from ruin.
The revolution will not be televised, but it is where we will join in the act
of walking free.
The revolution is heading eastward, westward, and every other direction.
The revolution knows the road to paradise often runs through prison,
and freedom is God’s highway.
In the revolution we are all runaway slaves;
all roads lead to the revolution:
where there will be no more bullets struck into Black America’s heart,
where there will be no more backwashing the Trail of Tears.
The revolution will not be televised, but it will unite soccer moms with rebels, rebels with trees, trees with rapture, rapture with water, and water with thirsty ghosts of Cherokee.
The revolution suggests that you are not your culture, but your culture may be what’s killing you… or at least spoiling your country walks.
The revolution will finally give wilderness a thought.
The revolution will break open the dam of small justices and small pleasures.
The revolution will start with a hashtag and end in headlines with the fences thrown down, followed by 88,000 generations of free association, free roaming, and berry picking — by the bushel full, growing over hillsides, growing over the Earth for free, forever.
The revolution is not a revolution.
The revolution is merely our hearts raising our hands.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers and sisters;
the revolution will be live.