At the dawn of humanity, we were hunting for food.
Running 'round with our knives to, find some grub to consume.
But then in the distance, farming gave us the time
To sit and think about whatever we liked,
And so we learned how to write.
There it was in all its glory,
And people knew how to spell.
A new tool had now shown itself,
By which societies then rose or they fell.
Those who knew it or learned it – pushed the others away.
This new idea was so powerful,
And it was here to stay…

Writing is power, I just wanted to make sure you know that
Allows us to say
Things to people far away
So hard to make that it only happened twice alone, yeah…
Then it spread from there, but not just through the air….

Well it was definitely different, the way that writing spread.
Some had it really, really, hard, they saw it just at the end.
Others saw its development, saw it right from the start,
But they still had to adapt it, in itself quite an art.

So I'll tell you a story
About an Indian one time.
He's called, Sequoya the Cherokee back in 1825.
Before their voices were the only way…
Record keeping wasn't part of the game,
Until the white man came.

Writing is power, I just wanted to make sure you know that
Allows us to say
Things to people far away
So hard to make, but Sequoyah did it too, yeah
With a nice surprise, from the writing of whites…

He made a syllabary,
Taught them how to write,
This is a wonderful example of, writing coming to life
There are other examples
Logograms and alphabets,
Often kept by all the royal guys,
To keep the pesants not a threat.
One thing to remember, is that
Writing needs a core (of)
Farming peoples to support its fight
For a place to develop more.
So the fortunate societies,
Get more fortunate indeed.
Yes, for you to learn how to write,
Your environment must take the lead…