It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

The words

A relentless indictment of advertising, hypocrisy and power, told by someone who refuses to be shaken.

The singer surveys a darkened world and lays out what he sees: advertising that deceives, preachers and politicians who manipulate, people who conform out of fear, and a society that worships money. The verses tumble forward in long chains of rhymes, broken by short refrains in which he insists he is unharmed, merely bleeding, and simply living. It is an unrelenting monologue over hard, insistent acoustic guitar, sustained across about seven and a half minutes.