Gil Scott-Heron - “The Ghetto Code (Dot Dot Dit Dit Dot Dot Dash)”

[Vocals/Words By: Gil Scott-Heron]

[Intro: Gil Scott-Heron]

How’s everybody? How’s everybody doing? Everybody alright? Hope everyone is OK. Funky vibrations are still showing, yeah, are still showing and anxious to see you. I am glad that so many of you could come out and join us this evening to share vibrations with us. My name, of course, is Gil Scott-Heron, and my, my organization and my family is called The Midnight Band, and we are here this evening to, to bring you some midnight vibrations. We are convinced that midnight is the first minute of a new day, and we are further convinced that we are entitled to a new day, and we are further convinced that we are going to have to establish the new day by communicating a little bit more closely with one another. So we have, we have been spreading the word about some vibes that concern communication from place to place, and we have been trying to get into the New York vibration as it concerns this communication. What we are talking about has evolved as The Ghetto Code

[Verse 1: Gil Scott-Heron]

The Ghetto Code, often times referred to as “Dot Dot Dit Dit Dot Dot Dash”

Sounds a little bit, people used to tell me, said it sound like the Morse Code

We call it, more so, “The Remorse Code”

The Ghetto Code, the “Damned If I Know”

“Dot Dot Dit Dit Dot Dot Dash” means “Damned If I Know”

And the reason this has become such a popular phrase in different black communities around the nation is because

There are more and more things black people thought they had a handle on

That they have seen sort of slowly slip away from them

And they be saying, “Well, damn

What happened to that?” “Dot Dot Dit Dit Dot Dot Dash huh?”

“I’m Damned If I Know.” For example

We started to reinvestigate astrology, found out that it was an ancient artform of science

It’s something that we can depend on more so than Walter Concrete, and

And got into a vibration related to how the things were done in terms of astrology

Sun’s over here, the Moon’s over here, people started to memorize their charts

Organizing their days, their planning, their reaping, and [?]

Then they found out somebody had been messing with the calendar

Because there’s a month in our calendar called July

That was slipped in there to honor Julius Caesar

And there’s a month in our calendar called August

That was slipped in there to honor Augustus Caesar

And there’s a month in our calendar called September

Which is the seventh month

It means “seventh” in Latin, but it is the ninth month in our calendar

People started saying, “Well, damn. Dot Dot Dit Dit Dot Dot Dash”

They found out octo—involving themselves with the romance languages—”octo” means “eight”

“Ocho”—very similar to “ocho”—October, the tenth month

“Nove”—or “nueve” for “nine”—November, the eleventh month

“Dece”—or “diez” for “ten”—December, the twelfth month

“Dot Dot Dit Dit Dot Dot Dash,” “Damned If I Know”

And I believe that problem has originated right here, in February

Nothing personal, for those of you born in February, but there is something wrong with February

I have been watching February closely

And I have never quite been able to get a grasp on where February is coming from

Because it would seem that it’d take at least thirty days for it to be a month

The precedent had been established by the other eleven months having all at least thirty days

February, you get twenty-eight three years in a row. If you make it, you get a bonus

February 29th—why don’t they make that January 32nd?

Or March thirt-, it’s because they know there’s something wrong with February, and they’re trying to even it out while nobody looking

“Dot Dot Dit Dit Dot Dot Dash”

This is like, if somebody was to give you four weeks and say, “Here, you have four weeks of your very own”

You take ‘em home, unwrap ‘em, you find out one of the weeks only has five days

It’s not that you have anything against that week

It’s just that you know white folks—ain’t gon’ be no weekend

You gon’ go home Friday night, get up the next day. It’s Monday, you gon’ have go to right back to work

You say, “Well, Dot Dot Dit Dit Dot Dot Dash

I got shortchanged. I had a week, but it wasn’t quite a week

Dot Dot Dit Dit Dot Dot Dash”

The same thing happened to me in terms of looking at the alphabet

The alphabet was originally called “The Alpha Beta”

And it supposed to contain all of the symbols—and that’s important—all of the symbols from Alpha to Omega

Alpha was the beginning, Omega was the end

Alpha was the letter “A,” the beginning. Omega was the end, the letter “Q”

But, “R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z”

They did not say that from Alpha to Omega was from beginning damn near to the end

They said, “From beginning to end.” I took their word for it

The end was Omega, and that’s “Q”

And they all these extra letters, which means there may be some words out there that don’t mean nothing

Somebody very soon may come up to you, using the alphabet as it was originally intended

From Alpha to Omega, and something like, “(*Gibberish*)”

“Dot Dot Dit Dit Dot Dot Dash,” “Damned If I Know”

I ain’t got the, I ain’t got the papers

The letter I would like to go into with you very briefly is the letter “C”—it is one of my favorites

Oh, it’s very underrated in terms of letters, you know?

Very people sit around and comment on the virtues of the letter “C”

But it is the first letter in “Cash Money”

It is the first letter in “Constitution”

And it is the last letter in “Music”

It is the first letter also in “CIA”

The CIA and FBI, their noses pressed against our windowpane

Ears glued to our telephone. Why won’t they leave us alone?

“Dot Dot Dit Dit Dot Dot Dash,” “Damned If I Know”

The CIA and FBI, their noses pressed against our windowpane

Ears glued to our telephone, why won't they leave us alone?

Trying to pick up on The Ghetto Code

Old-fashioned Ghetto Code, you remember, you used to jump on the telephone, say

“Hey, Bree-is-other me-is-an, how you fe-is-eel?

Is everything all-re-is-all-right?

Well, why don’t you, uh, well, why don’t you tell me about this pe-is-arty to-ne-is-ight? You going?

We-is-ell, why don’t you bring me a ne-is-ickel be-is-ag?’

(Laughter.)

“Yeah, and if you get back [?], why don’t you bring some be-is-am-be-is-oo so I can re-is-oll all these up. I appreciate it”

I know whoever it was they was paying to listen in on my phone had to be saying, “Well, Dot Dot Dit Dit Dot Dot Dash. Damned If I Know”

The “C” that reminds you of “CIA” and “Cash Money,” they’ll come together

In a case that concerns itself with Howard Hughes

The CIA gave Howard Hughes 400 million dollars cash money

Give or take a million or two, you understand?

And told Howard Hughes that he was to build a salvaged ship

The salvaged ship was going to called the Glomar Challenger

And the Challenger was going to go out in the Pacific

To try and recover a Russian submarine that sank in 1968

The reason our government was so interested in this submarine was because of the “C”—codebooks onboard

We assumed that Howard Hughes, indeed, did build this ship and equipped it with a giant magnet

We would not assume that Howard’d come back with a little bitty magnet for all that money

But the submarine that sank to the bottom of the Pacific had broken into three parts

The magnet went down, brought up the first part of the submarine, had onboard seventy dead Russian sailors

Well, no real advantage there

I mean, it hadn’t been worth a dime to the Russian—I mean, whatever it is

Нет rubles—they... whatever it is Russians say when that means they ain’t putting up a dime

Which means that, in certain instances, we could see ourselves having been overextended

Magnet went down, brought up the second part of the submarine, had onboard two bombs

Two warheads, two Polaris-type warheads, two nuclear weapons

Point is that this country already has plenty of bombs

Matter of fact, they have little bombs, big bombs, round ones, and square ones, and have been stockpiling them for quite some time

To the point where they now have damn near one bomb for every individual

And if you don’t like the way they’re running things and you call them up and tell them, they may send you yours

Neutron, oldtron—whichever kind of tron—electron

The vibe related to the third part of the submarine and the m-m-important and mysterious Russian codebooks

But before the magnet could go down to get the third part, somebody said, “Hey, wait a minute

You know, that Russian submarine went down in 1968

And we’ve been trying to pick it up now for the last six years

And everybody knows that when you lose your codebooks

You change your code”

Which means that, for 400 million dollars, we have recovered seventy dead Russian sailors, two bombs we did not need, and, perhaps, Russian codebooks for codes the Russians weren’t even using anymore

Somebody said, “Why in the world we spend all that money?” Somebody else said

“Dot Dot Dit Dit Dot Dot Dash. Damned If I Know”

Cash Money may not be what you need right through here

You might need some explanations related to other activities—like, the “C” might remind you of “Cuba”

The “C” in “Cuba” and the reminiscence of that reminds us that the CIA undertook a very secret project towards Cuba called the Bay of Pigs Invasion

The Bay of Pigs Invasion was very much repelled

But it did reveal “C”—clues—clues that had to do with assassination attempts on a man whose name starts with “C”—Castro

The “C” might remind you of “Chile”

Over eight million American dollars spent in Chile by the CIA to help overthrow a man named Salvador Allende, who just happened to be a “C”—communist

The “C” might remind you of the “Canal”—say what?—the Canal. The Canal? The Panama Canal?

There seems to be some problem in dealing with the geography of the Panama Canal—it’s not really that complicated

There’s a little bit of Panama over here, then there’s some Canal

Then there’s a little bit more of Panama over here, but the Panamanians do not control the Canal

You could think of it as if Amtrak came through your crib

You would at least want to know the man who was punching the tickets and have a very tight relationship with him

The “C” that reminds of the “Canal” could remind you of a “covert operation,” headquarter base: CIA

Information related to “C”—Columbia

And assassination attempts and destruction attempts on a man whose name starts with “C”—Che Guevara

The “C” might remind you of the “Congo”—say what?—the Congo. The Congo?

The “C” that reminds you of the “Congo” could remind you of how geography sometimes changes

Looking at the map of Africa today, where you see the word “Zaire”, you would, at one time, see “Congo” or “Belgian Congo”

Remembrances of this would remind you of a man who stood for African unity, a man named Patrice Lumumba

But somehow, but somehow Patrice Lumumba was assassinated during a mysterious “C”—“coup d’état”

Other things that haven’t been solved and haven’t been quite explained to anybody’s satisfaction like

Was that Lee Harvey Oswald over there or was it Lee Harvey Oswald over there?

Was he 5-feet-8, 165 pounds or was he 6’2”, 205?

Was he photographed for his passport in Dallas or was that Moscow?

Arthur Bremer? Was he from Maine, Maryland, or Massachusetts?

Was he captured in the Midwest or the Middle East?

And if they always have a chance to photograph these people before they commit their crimes, why can’t they stop them?

“Dot Dot Dit Dit Dot Dot Dash,” “Damned If I Know”

But other problems we would still like to see solved like JFK—you believe all that?

RFK—you believe all that?

MLK—you believe all that?

Malcolm X—you believe all that?

All of this was some great, big old “C”—coincidence—or just a little bitty “C”—conspiracy?

There are two questions that concern us very much about the letter “C”

The first one is: the CIA—who the hell runs that organization?

The second one is: who runs this country?

“Dot Dot Dit Dit Dot Dot Dash,” “Damned If I Know”

[Outro: Gil Scott-Heron]

Brothers and sisters, thank you very much. A first minute experience, The Midnight Band. Thank you, thank you