Banjo Yes Receives A Lifetime Achievement Award

I ain’t no never had to never done

No acting not like some of these white boys / Nothing

you’ll find in books

y’all listen close / Now     and I’ll tell you how I got my name

I worked on     as a young man on a lot

What do you think I did I cleaned I fetched

Shit and more shit shit both ways shit and took

And kept it too yes     and whenever I thought

A white boy might be calling me shit yes / I answered

one     morning and I’m just cross-

ing from one thing to the next I hear a shout

Banjo and so     I lift my head but not

Too high that ain’t my name and I say Yes

Back loud but     real polite     and this white boy

I never seen before and he’s away

Over the other side of the lot but each

Of the white boys there he had a different

Important way of standing and no I

Ain’t seen this boy before he had his fists

Jammed in his hips like all of them but he

Leaned heavy on his left leg like he was

Limping standing still     I run quick o-

ver to him I say Yes sir tells me to

Bend down and wipe this     is the truth it was

A spot of bird shit from his shoe

this ain’t     / No kind of story where the nigger says

No I bent down and cleaned his shoe

I can’t     / From down there see the look on the man’s face

From down there at his feet but just as I

Get started     and I think he must have been

Smiling he says Is your name Banjo I

Say No sir my name’s Bill and he     says Ban–

jo suits you better     Banjo Yes     and when

I talk to you that’s who you’re gonna be

And I say Yes sir sir your shoe is clean

Now listen     that boy he was nobody

In fact I never saw that boy again

But that name stuck to me

and when you see     / A white boy talking on the screen     that’s him

And when you see me smiling back that’s me

Banjo Yes Talks About His First White Wife

Thing is she hated her

Father     her mother and her brothers     loved

Her cousin but he stopped

Coming around     / After she married me no letters said

He didn’t have a phone

So every Christmas every birthday every Goddamn

Armistice Day I sent that boy a phone     / She didn’t know I did that

but I made sure he knew it was me I sent

The same note every time     Don’t

Worry I got a white boy here he answers our

Calls see     he wanted that and didn’t want it

A nigger     can surround himself with whiteness

But it becomes a wall between him     / And whiteness

and he wants and doesn’t want it

Banjo Yes Remembers His First Car

It wasn’t no

Question of did I steal it nobody no cop

In some of the towns I drove through never saw

A nigger drive alone before     / They were astonished that’s the word for it

In Bakersfield the sheriff followed me

from one     / End of the town to the other he had been

I guess been waiting for

Anything but the circus to pass through

And when he saw the circus coming man     he had to follow it

A black man has to be a circus by himself

a lion-tamer and a clown

A strongman and an acrobat

Money don’t make it     / Stop he gets rich he buys more

white folks tickets