Show Lyrics

LA Symphony - Pops Song
(from the album Disappear Here)
© copyright 2005

COOKBOOK:
(Yo, this one goes out to the unsung heroes, the ones that’s raisin’ they kids and lovin’ they wives. This is dedicated to Doug Atkins, Kofi Boateng, Manuel Palma Senior, and, of course, Philip Soto, rest in peace)

SHARLOK POEMS:
It's my eighth birthday 1984/
I wake up to shoes, clothes, toys, and more/
Everybody that I love stepped through the front door/
Who are you? I've never seen your face before/
Unsure of what to say I don't speak at all/
It's weird you look me standing 6 feet tall/
Back to the wall uncomfortable with you in my house/
I wish that mom would kick you out/
Time to blow the candles out, happy birthday we sing/
I notice that you don't say a thing/
A gift you didn't bring and Mom looks sad/
She had to tell her little boy that you were his dad/
Feeling bad meaning bad I don't see nothing good/
Trade you in for a new dad if I could/
Still you stood until you stepped out for a smoke/
The smoke cleared and you disappeared like a ghost/

CHORUS:
Nobody on the planet can do your job/
No better combination than you and mom/
When it’s right it’s right. When it’s wrong it’s wrong/
A house ain’t a home, when daddy’s gone/ (2x)

JOEY THE JERK:
I didn’t have that average black dad, planting a seed to grow mad/
Wondering if everything I had inside me was bad/
My pops was African and proud, my moms from L.A. and loud/
They’d disagree until the sun went down/
Come around my fifth year of school they was cool on staying together/
My pops was like whatever I do/
Is ? of you kids and I did all that I know to do/
But your mother tends to misguide you/
What’s most important is school/
She’d rather you fail but know your Bible/
She’s my rival shell disagree just to start a fight/
So back and forth they go with their defensive reason/
My moms at work, my Father’d check on homework every evening/
I was deceiving, F’s and D’s I was receiving/
I didn’t get whippings, I got African beatings/
I hope im not misleading/ my pops a great man/
Still lobbying for college, still an anti-rap fan

CHORUS

FLYNN:
Now many shortcomings he has, but he's full of love indeed/
Been there since my birth when he was only seventeen/
Faithful to my mother, he saw her as a queen/
He wouldn't leave her bedside when cancer came to the scene/
He's a man of faith, a pillar in the church/
But mostly my dad's about work, work, work/
Now some would say my dad's a workaholic/
And some would say that I'm a workaholic/
And now that's how we usually relate/
A similar struggle where our debts communicate/
Financial provision aligned with vision is a blessing/
He's taught me perseverance through all of life's testing/
It's do or die, never quit, stand firm in faith/
Bitter honest backing promise in words and ways/
Wise in counsel, attentive with the ear/
Though thousands of miles away I know he's right here

CHORUS