Wise man lookin' in a blade of gra** Young man lookin' in shadows that pa** Poor man lookin' through painted gla** Fat man lookin' in a blade of steel Thin man lookin' at his last meal Hollow man lookin' in a cottonfield For dignity Drinkin' man listens to the voice he hears In a crowded room full of covered-up mirrors Lookin' into the lost forgotten years For dignity I went down where the vultures feed Would have got deeper, but there wasn't any need I heard the tongues of angels and the tongues of man Wasn't any difference to me Sick man lookin' for the doctor's cure Lookin' at his hands for the lines that were Into every masterpiece of literature Blind man breakin' out of a trance Puts both hands in the pockets of chance
Hopin' to find one circumstance Of dignity Footprints runnin' across silver sand Steps goin' down into tatoo land Met the sons of darkness and the sons of light In the border towns of despair No place to fade, I got no coat I'm on the rolling river in a jerkin' boat Trying to read a note somebody wrote Englishman stranded in the blackheart wind Combin' his hair back, his future looks thin Bites the bullet and looks within For dignity Someone showed me a picture and I just laughed Dignity never been photographed I went into the red, I went into the black Into the valley of dry-bone dreams So many roads, so much at stake So many dead ends, I'm at the edge of a lake Sometimes I wonder what it's gonna take To find dignity