I don't have to tell you things are bad
Everybody knows things are bad.
Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job.
The dollar buys a nickel's worth...
Banks are going bust...
Shop-keepers keep a gun under the counter...
Punks are running wild on the street
And there's nobody anywhere that seems to know what to do.
And there's no end to it.
We know the air is unfit to breathe,
Our food is unfit to eat...
We sit watching our t.v.s while some local newscaster
Tells us that today we had fifteen homicides
And sixty-three violent crimes
As if that's the way it's supposed to be!

We know things are bad; worse than bad.
They're crazy! it's like everything,
Everywhere is going crazy.
So, we don't go out anymore;
We sit in the house and slowly the world
We're living in is getting smaller and we say:
Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms...
Let me have my toaster and my t.v.
And my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything
Just leave us alone.

But I'm not gonna leave you alone...
I want you to get mad!
I don't want you to protest
And I don't want you to riot or write your congressman,
Because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write.
I don't know what to do about the depression
And the inflation and the russians or the crime in the street.
All I know is that first you've got to get mad...
You've got to say: I'm a human being
Goddamn it -- my life has value!

I want you to get up now,
I want all of you to get up out of your chairs.
I want you to get up, right now, and go to the window
Open it and stick your head out and yell:
I'm as mad as hell
And I'm not going to take this anymore!