Boston Rebel
How does a young and relentless runaway apprentice,
Focus his attention on economic ascension?
Political conventions innovative inventions
become such an iconic, enigmatic, eccentjric?
The ten thousand cented, witty man with a thousand senses
Worth 1000 sentences without question, the most stupendous
100 dollar balla, founding father’s founding father,
I was a lot smarter, hardworking self-starter
A blue-collar brawler who couldn’t afford Harvard
But by 14, had joined his brother in a newspaper war up
In Boston, the Puritan tradition was waning,
And draining to the population whom they failed to contain,
When James Franklin stated, “man it’s insane if I complain,
I’ll be blamed as a sinner, name defamed, then hanged,
Like them women from Salem who they proclaimed
To be agents of Satan just for using their brain,”
Domination of religion gave James reason to rage
Put the quill to the page, his paper became a hav-en
For the men of a new generation,
Newly formed “natives” born from the congregation
Separation of church and state was the sentiment
Questioning, aggressive gentlemen of the Enlightenment
Began fighting with the church in feisty print
The rhetoric was rather bitter, James lead the fight in it
And I was sitting in the room where it happened,
The room of the philosophical satirical rappings
Laughin’ at another minister slash combatant
While i took it all in, growing slowly maddened
At the fact that i would probably be
The best writer in James’s paper, the NEC
I tried to use my name but James forbid me
I became Silence Dogood, a chick in her fifties
I was a tough old gal, with the eyes of an eagle
Who would find follies, sins, and all that was evil
Harvard was a bastion of pretension and ignorance
Ministers turned politicians were religious hypocrites
“Girls are proud, dumb, and idle,” men would complain when
Men weren’t allowing women education
We should help out widows and pay em what we can
And help out all the spinsters, who just needed a man
I kept at it, every other week I had it
Front page of the paper, James was steadily attacking
the government, but then they got real pissed,
James implied that they were hesitant with pirates,
So they tossed him in jail, leaving the paper high and dry with
No one left to run it, someone heard my wish
I printed, I wrote, I pitched, I sold
I was heating up, and James he was stuck in the cold
Now when he got out, James had a vendetta
A right to print freely without fearing the censors
He came on back and started his crusade
And I wanted to aid but James said “no way,”
Since I saved the paper from being destroyed,
I wanted it so we were Brothers fighting over a toy….
And boy, you know what comes next, need I even mention
All the tension that began festering and fermenting
I told ‘em I was Dogood with obnoxious condescension
The subsequent contention increased from this dissension
Multiple dimensions to the aggression that I received,
I was obnoxious for running the NEC successfully
And James himself felt a little ashamed
His itty bitty little brother was claiming some fame
So he began verbal attacks and then he would smack me
I would yap back, and earn slaps and whacks more savagely
Finally said I’m gone, from this treatment and this town
Boston sucked so I was New York bound
I got into the harbor and looked around
I said, “Fuck New York, take me further south”
I ended up in Philly, much to my relief
A city with a bit of different religious lean
Thus began my story, the rest is US history
The US is us but I put the his in his-story
I put this his in history, I put the his in history (2x)”