Bob Dylan - Neighborhood Bully

Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man

His enemies say he’s on their land

They got him outnumbered about a million to one

He got no place to escape to, no place to run

He’s the neighborhood bully

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive

He’s criticized and condemned for being alive

He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin

He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in

He’s the neighborhood bully

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land

He’s wandered the earth an exiled man

Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn

He’s always on trial for just being born

He’s the neighborhood bully

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized

Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.

Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad

The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to feel bad

He’s the neighborhood bully

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim

That he’ll live by the rules that the world makes for him

’Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back

And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac

He’s the neighborhood bully

He got no allies to really speak of

What he gets he must pay for, he don’t get it out of love

He buys obsolete weapons and he won’t be denied

But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side

He’s the neighborhood bully

Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace

They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease

Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly. To hurt one they would weep

They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep

He’s the neighborhood bully

Every empire that’s enslaved him is gone

Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon

He’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand

In bed with nobody, under no one’s command

He’s the neighborhood bully

Now his holiest books have been trampled upon

No contract he signed was worth what it was written on

He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth

Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health

He’s the neighborhood bully

What’s anybody indebted to him for?

Nothin’, they say. He just likes to cause war

Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed

They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed

He’s the neighborhood bully

What has he done to wear so many scars?

Does he change the course of rivers? Does he pollute the moon and stars?

Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill

Running out the clock, time standing still

Neighborhood bully

• Artist:Bob Dylan
• Album:idels (1983)