Written by John Mellencamp, Carlton Ridenhour and Kyle Jason
Hey Poppi yea ho
Hey Poppi yea ho
Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah
Lay low proud Poppi
Lay low proud Poppi (shout it out)
He's from the deep south (shout it out)
Pass Christian Mississippi
Where the cane breaks are burnin' every night
Lay low proud Poppi (shout it out)
Chant:
Hey o
Hey o
O Poppi
Hey o
Hey o
Hey Poppi
Hey o
Hey o
Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah
Poppi had a wife
And she was black and Poppi was white (shout it out)
Everything was rollin' great (shout it out)
'Til some man called her race a disgrace
Oh no
Chant
Well Poppi went down to the river
To defend the honor of his wife
(somebody's killin' somebody)
Gonna drown the man in the water (shout it out)
And the water was shiny like a new knife
But Poppi stopped at the banks of the Delta
He said this sure ain't worth this man's life
Someday the wind of change
Is gonna blow on through
And put all of these jokers right
C'mon and sing now
Chant
Chuck D Rap:
Papa got a brand new bag
Delta blues got 'em dazed and confused
Came a long way crazy
Seems the abuse
Is racism's baby
It's wild
'Cause I connect the word with pain
Now some smile when they scream the name?
Funny how the times have changed
And the rhymes have changed
But some cat's frame remains the same
Agitating adjective
What gives? die n word die
But I wanna live
Known' all this
Where the word came from
I must be 3 times stupid
And stuck on dumb
If I use it and confuse it
With a term of love
Now popular culture
Can't stop 'til it gets enough
Underlined in marketing campaigns
I feel undermined
Heard the n word promotes the bottom line
Down by the river there's a great divide
Let's ride
Don't call me nigga 'cause you know I don't like it like that
Don't call me nigga 'cause you knoI know an old lady who swallowed a fly
I don't know why she swallowed the fly
Perhaps she'll die
I know an old lady who swallowed a spider
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly
But I don't know why she swallowed the fly
Perhaps she'll die
I know an old lady who swallowed a bird
How absurd to swallow a bird
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly
But I don't know why she swallowed the fly
Perhaps she'll die
I know an old lady who swallowed a cat
Imagine that. She swallowed a cat.
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly
But I don't know why she swallowed that fly
Perhaps she'll die
I know an old lady who swallowed a dog
What a hog to swallow a dog!
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly
But I don't know why she swallowed that fly
Perhaps she'll die
I know an old lady who swallowed a goat
Opened her throat and down went the goat!
She swallowed the goat to catch the dog
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly
But I don't know why she swallowed that fly
Perhaps she'll die
I know an old lady who swallowed a cow
I don't know how she swallowed the cow
She swallowed the cow to catch the goat
She swallowed the goat to catch the dog
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat
She swallowed the cat