The Change Cage - Abney Park

I take a steam train to work

Just like the one my father took

And I pass over the walls

I see the people as I look

I see--there's the block

For folks with yellow skin;

There’s the block for folks who have no chin;

There’s the block for me and all my kin;

And over there is the change cage where we throw the rebels in.

I work the change cage

Here on our side of the wall

And I will hold the key until the day they say the cage will fall.

Here on our side of the wall

And I will hold the key until the day they say the cage will fall.

Walls of iron bolted with steel

Two miles high, that should hide how we feel.

And in the city we’ve walled off each block

This should work to segregate any racial melting pot.

Long ago we learned of the trouble

When a man steps out of his life’s plastic bubble

So we walled off the city, caged thoughts that were free

And now our lives are safe from any change that

Could have come between you and me.

I work the change cage

Here on our side of the wall

And I will hold the key until the day they say the cage will fall.

Here on our side of the wall

And I will hold the key until the day they say the cage will fall.

I work the change cage

Here on our side of the wall

And I will hold the key until the day they say the cage will fall.

Here on our side of the wall

And I will hold the key until the day they say the cage will fall.

They say an artist from block 616

Revived some old art just for his own kicks.

They say his pictures were lewd,

They say his women were nude,

So we throw them inside.

Well, now, that artist can run, he can hide

But sooner or later we’ll throw him inside.

I don’t think the people should see,

Well that’s not art to me,

So we’ll throw them inside.

I work the change cage

Here on our side of the wall

And I will hold the key until the day they say the cage will fall.

Here on our side of the wall

And I will hold the key until the day they say the cage will fall…