Lyrics to
Black Messiah

This version of Black Messiah was released by The Kinks in 1978.

Our Decade Lyrics The Kinks profile has all of the Black Messiah lyrics from 1978 and many more songs from the The Kinks discography that we have on file.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to The Kinks or about the 1970s in general.

Everybody got the right to speak their mind
So don’t shoot me for saying mine
Everybody talking about racial equality
‘Cos everybody’s equal in the good Lord’s eyes
But if I told you that God was black
What would you think of that
I bet you wouldn’t believe it

There’s a self made prophet living right next to me
He said the Black Messiah’s gonna come and set the whole world free
He looked at me with his evil eye and prophesied
And he really believed it

He said a Black Messiah is gonna set the world on fire
And he no liar, ‘cos he has truly heard the word
Everybody talk about racial equality
But I’m the only honky living on an all black street
They knock me down ‘cos they brown and I white
Like you wouldn’t believe it

They say a Black Messiah is gonna set the world on fire
A Black Messiah is gonna come and rule the world
Everybody talk about racial equality
Everybody talk about equal rights
But white’s white, black’s black and that’s that
Everybody got the right to speak their mind
So don’t shoot me for saying mine

Everybody talking about racial equality
You hear everybody talking about equal rights
But white’s white, black’s black and that’s that
And that’s the way you should leave it

Don’t want no Black Messiah to come and set the world on fire
A Black Messiah is gonna come and rule the world
Everybody got to show a little give and take
Everybody got to live with a little less hate
Everybody gotta work it out, we gotta sort it out
Everybody got the right to speak their mind
So don’t shoot me for saying mine

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The Kinks has released many songs over the years besides Black Messiah. The Kinks released songs from 1964 to 1993 spanning across albums like Kinks, Kinda Kinks, The Kink Kontroversy, Face To Face, Something Else, The Village Green Preservation Society, Arthur (Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire), Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround, Part One, Muswell Hillbillies, Percy, Everybody's In Show-Biz, Preservation Act I, Preservation Act II, Soap Opera, Schoolboys In Disgrace, Sleepwalker, Misfits, Low Budget, Give The People What They Want, State Of Confusion, Word Of Mouth, Think Visual, UK Jive, and Phobia. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by The Kinks.

If you're a fan of 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1978 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Black Messiah by The Kinks

The lyrics for Black Messiah are made up of the words, verses and background chorus for the popular 1978 song by The Kinks. Like a lot of songs, the lyrics to Black Messiah have both direct meanings and metaphorical context hidden within the song's words. All of the meanings are only truly known by the creators of the lyrics for Black Messiah - The Kinks and any of the writers who worked with them on the song.

If you have an interest in the structure of words and phrases, you can dissect the lyrics to Black Messiah by The Kinks in multiple ways. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Black Messiah" means the words set to the music of Black Messiah, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by The Kinks. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Black Messiah and the lyrics to Black Messiah are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of The Kinks who came here looking just for the lyrics to Black Messiah, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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