Faces and names

There was something in the air that day
Like gunpowder or sulfur
And soon a wild migration came from upstairs like a
storm
I was at a costume party and although nobody noticed
me
I mingled there stark naked All my emperor's clothes
were torn
And suddenly the sprinkler system ran the makeup down
her dress
And I must confess I had forgotten who I went to meet
there
Something was not right right there
And there I saw you five years later like someone I'd
never seen before
And my life flashed before me and exploded into
flames
Now I just sit back and laugh cause the only thing
that's changed
Are the faces and the names

So I thought I'd say hello but that building it was
burning
And you turned and ran away just like the vision I
remember
Right then I got run over by a local politician
Who had said that segregation would be good for
education
So there I was stark naked with a racist policitian in
about three feet of water in a building that was
burning
We looked to find an exit then he said he owned the
building
I was breathing in the suffocation blowing out the
air
And my life flashed before me and exploded into
flames
Now I just sit back and laugh cause the only thing
that's changed
Are the faces and the names

And had knocked myself unconcious at the time I felt
like drowning
When I came to I was rolling through emergency room
doors
They left me in the waiting room with work related
head-wound victims
Wondering what happened and still bleeding on the
floor
And sitting there my grade-school teacher stared at me
and said what happened son you could have been someone
could have been so much more
And I thought about that party and my fine
fair-weathered friends
And that burning building and those folks I'd never
see again
And my life flashed before me and exploded into
flames
Now I just sit back and laugh cause the only thing
that's changed
Are the faces and the names