SKU: A0.970760

By Mike Strand, ASCAP

Here’s a swing tune lead sheet, with lyrics, chord symbols, and guitar fret boards, for a jazz group, large or small, with a singer.  It’s a solid foundation for a variety of arrangements, contra facts, and improvisations.

The audio file is a swing accompaniment from iReal Pro, combined with the melody from Finale PrintMusic. In this sample, you hear a baritone saxophone in place of the singer, and an electric guitar for the instrumental sections.

The lyrics express frustration with white bigotry toward people with dark skin, and how that brand of racism surfaces in acts of police brutality. The lyrics pose both practical and ideal solutions.

Here are the lyrics:

For Way Too Long

For way too long, dark skin has been called blight,

And just to breathe, black folks have had to fight.

Civil rights laws are there; it’s only fair, we give them real bite.

(Instrumental)

Civil rights laws are there; it’s only fair, we give them real bite.

For way too long, bad cops have broken rules,

While their good partners get put down by them as fools.

But now we all may see the fall of bigots using blacks as tools.

(Instrumental)

But now we all may see the fall of bigots using blacks as tools.

For way too long, cold hearts remain unchanged.

But with strong rules, constraints can be arranged. 

Enforcing laws need not be cause for folks to be estranged.