[Chorus]
Black, you are my enemy
And I cannot get close to thee
Our life is ruled by enmity
And I can't weaken that
The only way that I can see
Is to hold you close to me
To love you for it's meant to be
I weaken your attack

Everything was lucked and downy
What was good was up from under
Until black, that awful tender
Came and popped my sense of wonder
All at once all eyes turned at him
Leaving me an unwatched body
And it sagged, my body's rib cage
Out from under ogler's study
Black was decomposing quickly
This was found offensive to me
His disrespect for life's proprieties
Made me scared he would destroy me

[Chorus]

So I thought I'd try to cut him
Try to force him 'neath my level
The only way to equal to him
Would be hit him with a shovel
But to really rise above him
That would be the final evil
So instead I asked the sucker
If he'd care to see my rooms
And as a friend and as a comrade
And all the things that these implied
I made him leave what it was that he had
Used to keep us unallied

Black, you are my enemy
And I cannot get close to thee
Our life is ruled by enmity
And I can't weaken that
The only way that I can see
Is to hold you close to me
To love you for it's meant to be
I weaken your attack

Now black and I we are together
Fairly just inseparable
And in the terriblest of weather
Our bonds are incorruptible

[Chorus]

Copyright: Universal Music Publishing Group
Writer(s): Eddie Jerome Vedder, Stone C. Gossard