Some set their heads to swimming, nothing to lose
Drift about their good times, slivers in their boots
Some walk the straight and narrow, only passing through
Trading this world over for a pair of gospel shoes

Gospel shoes are laced with shackles and chains
Fitted for the poor runners of the race
Now every hand is folded shape of a gun
Target's ever changing but the war it rages on

So the armies march onward for the mother and the son
As this world of screaming color is bleached in the blood

Freedom was a simple word so reverent and true
A long time ago, it meant the right to choose
Who you love and how to live, now it's so misused
Twisted by the politics of men in gospel shoes

So the armies march onward for the mother and the son
As this world of screaming color is bleached in the blood
Our mother she is crying, her broken heart is blue
'Cause we're too busy dying to love this life we lose

She's growing weary of the lying
She's tired of all this fighting in the name of gospel shoes