What’s My Name?

What’s in a name? Power of shame
A message in code but the meaning is plain
Choose this name and set yourself free
Float like a butterfly sting like a bee

What’s my name? What’s my name? Don’t call me…

Champion of the world, a poet and a clown
Still the greatest when they dragged you down
Stripped of the title, banned from the ring
Just too pretty and you say all these things
Throw thunder in jail and dance in the light
Stand up along in the fight of your life
The Silent majority, the Southern strategy
Won’t fight in their war, got his own war to fight

What’s my name? What’s my name? Don’t call me…

Houston Astrodome, Jim Crow South
Punch a way out with two fists and a mouth
Got no quarrel with them Viet Cong
On Celebrity Squares Ernie’s singing a song
‘Bout how he’ll change your features cos you changed your name
Now your draft number’s changed from 1-Y to 1-A
& Ernie Terrell won’t call you Mohammed Ali
Hold his broken body up til he can speak…..your name