Panorama Songtext
von Aesop Rock

I was sitting on my fire escape and I saw...

Sturdy bridges, decorated with dirty pigeons
A vagabond begging for three pennies and a princess
A junkie tourniquet surgeon urging the needle in
A batty senior citizen flashing that awful teethless grin

I saw a corner store merchant rest on a milk crate with a stog′
A pierced nose, a model with a stalker
Cheap hooker, jay walkers
A table on a sidewalk with four old men slappin' dominos down
A city, a village, a neighborhood, a ghost town

I saw vandals catching tags and Puerto Rican flags
I saw a pregnant woman on the verge of bursting (Boom)
I saw a blind man with a dog screaming ′someday I'll see it all'
And then he sat down with his hammer and saw

Business men with multi-colored ties, cashmere checks
A Nazi with tattoos on his neck, a Vietnam war vet
A Caucasian man with a limp and a cane, a pimp with his names
A thug circus, a pack of shook tourists hugging their purses


I saw freaks with rainbow streaks in day-glow hair
A mother smackin′ the grin off her child, replaced it with a stare
A pothole, a storefront with a broken open sign
A hole in the wall bar kicking drunks to the gutter, it′s closing time

I see a fuck up, a bum knuckle up with a taxi driver
A squatter, a grandfather, an angry right-to-lifer
I can see the roof garden on the apartment across the street
And kick myself because somewhere along the way I lost my seeds

I see a rat, a roach, a bat approach, a happy student
A black man with a horn and a will to make you sit and listen to it
I see a little girl on the corner with bubbles, braids and barrettes
I see a teen mother with Similak pacifier and regrets

Oh a day turned stale, a hammer with a rusty nail
A failed a marriage, a universe of brick buildings slightly off balance
A challenge
I see a chance to add real colors to my favorite palette
Raise my mighty mallet towards the gods and swing my talons


I see a crack in the sidewalk
A slide show of six civilians
Gripping bible like gideon
Sitting inside bent meridian
There's a fun house
Oh, a sun spout spraying yellow beams above yellow back dreams
And children in the hydrants, hybrids, I see sirens

The wall to the glamor standard
A dead bird, a bent curb
A bus stop of commuters waiting to have their souls towed off to work
I seen the slap dash habits of bike messengers
Pausing to huff that good leaf on the way to damaged packages for peddlers

Oh my lord, I see bandwagons, all aboard
A carnival amusement park where a heart is a luxury
I see a gassed galaxy huddled behind those pearly doors
Maybe I should sit up on my fire escape a little more