the little girl she said to me what are these things that i can see each night when i come home from school when mama calls me in for tea oh every night a baby dies and every night a mama cries what makes those men do what they do to make that person black and blue grandpa says their happy now they sit with god in paradise with angels wings and still somehow it makes me feel like ice tell me there s a heaven tell me that it s true tell me there s a reason why i m seeing what i do tell me there s a heaven where all those people go tell me they re all happy now papa tell me that it s so so do i tell her that it s true that there s a place for me and you where hungry children smile and say we wouldn t have no other way that every painful crack of bones is a step along the way every wrong done is a game plan to that great and joyful day and i m looking at the father and the son and i m looking at the mother and the daughter and i m watching them in tears of pain and i m watching them suffer don t tell that little girl tell me tell me there s a heaven tell me that it s true tell me there s a reason why i m seeing what i do tell me there s a heaven where all those people go tell me they re all happy now papa tell me that it s so