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