Station wagons order burgers through the drive-in intercom,
From black kids dressed in clown suits, happy just to have a job,
While the ghost-like TV flickers scenes from far away,
African children dying, it was more than Mickey could take.
Bird-like shadow running fast over the desert like a fox,
Saw Mickey’s plane go down and my heart fell like a rock,
With wings stretched out like a cross out to resurrect the dawn,
Falls like a single drop of rain in the barren hills below.
His name was Mickey Leland,
His name was not Mickey Mouse,
And he never did deceive you like the white man in the Whitehouse,
Some idiots get elected like Icarus in flight,
Some mount with wings of angels,
Sometimes they fall from the sky, whoa.
The wind was up that day and song was in the breeze,
I got it tangled in my mind, like a kite in a tree,
And I pulled its broken body down, examined it like a dead bird,
So beautiful, so perfect, yet so useless and absurd.
His name was Mickey Leland,
His name was not Mickey Mouse,
And he never did deceive you like the white man in the Whitehouse,
Some idiots get elected like Icarus in flight,
Some mount with wings of angels,
The they fall like diamonds from the sky.
So let those gulf winds blow, let those white caps roll,
All the way to Houston, all the way to the Alamo,
And flood the halls of Congress,
Come wash these urban slums,
My body lies over the ocean,
Carry me home.
His name was Mickey Leland,
His name was not Mickey Mouse,
And he never did deceive you like the old man in the Whitehouse,
Some idiots get elected like Icarus in flight,
Some mount with wings of angels,
Sometimes they fall from the sky.
