[JOHANNA]
Green finch and linnet bird
Nightingale, blackbird
How is it you sing?
How can you jubilate
Sitting in cages
Never taking wing?

Outside the sky waits
Beckoning, beckoning
Just beyond the bars
How can you remain
Staring at the rain
Maddened by the stars?
How is it you sing
Anything?
How is it you sing?

Green finch and linnet bird
Nightingale, blackbird
How is it you sing?
Whence comes this melody constantly flowing?
Is it rejoicing or merely halloing?
Are you discussing
Or fussing
Or simply dreaming?
Are you crowing?
Are you screaming?
Ringdove and robinet
Is it for wages
Singing to be sold?
Have you decided it's
Safer in cages
Singing when you're told?

My cage has many rooms
Damask and dark
Nothing there sings
Not even my lark
Larks never will, you know
When they're captive
Teach me to be more adaptive
Ah

Green finch and linnet bird
Nightingale, blackbird
Teach me how to sing
If I cannot fly
Let me sing