Annotations for Background: Transcription

Everyone in the world has gone to bed one night or another with fear, or pain, or loss…

Or disappointment. Yet each of us has awaken or risen

Uhh- somehow made our *Inaudible* seen other human beings

And said "Morning! How are you?" "Fine thanks, and you?"

It’s amazing and wherever that abides in the human being

There is the nobleness of the human spirit

Despite it all, black and white, asian, spanish, native american, pretty, plain, thin...

Fat...

Vowed as *inaudible* we rise…

You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lies

You may trod me in the very dirt but still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ‘Cause I walk like I've got oil wells pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns, with the certainty of tides. Just like hopes springing high. Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops. Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my sassiness upset you?

*Laughing*

Don't take it so hard just cause I laugh

*Hearty Laughter*

As if I have gold mines diggin’ in my own backyard.

You can shoot me with your words. You can cut me with your lies. You can kill me with your hatefulness, but just like life…

I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness offend you? Aww.

Does it come as a surprise that I dance...

as if I have diamonds at the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame, I rise, up from a past that’s rooted in pain, I rise. A black ocean, leaping and wide, welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise

Into a daybreak miraculously clear, I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave

I am the hope and the dream of the slave

And so naturally

There I go rising