I like the way the song progresses. It starts out with an incident involving one person (inspired by the Kitty Genovese murder).
The next verse involves a larger group but can still be rationalized as being of interest to a (relatively) small circle of friends - just not as small as in the first verse.
By the third verse, he has worked his way up to a large segment of the population.
The fourth verse involves rights of the whole country.
The irony in the fifth verse is that it refers to " a friend of ours" but still he says it would not interest anyone outside of a small circle of friends.
The song concludes by repeating the first verse. It reminds us that if we ignore an injustice to one person, then it is easy to ignore more widespread injustices, and soon we are victims, too.
I like the way the song progresses. It starts out with an incident involving one person (inspired by the Kitty Genovese murder).
The next verse involves a larger group but can still be rationalized as being of interest to a (relatively) small circle of friends - just not as small as in the first verse.
By the third verse, he has worked his way up to a large segment of the population.
The fourth verse involves rights of the whole country.
The irony in the fifth verse is that it refers to " a friend of ours" but still he says it would not interest anyone outside of a small circle of friends.
The song concludes by repeating the first verse. It reminds us that if we ignore an injustice to one person, then it is easy to ignore more widespread injustices, and soon we are victims, too.