DESCRIPTION:
"There But For The Grace Of God Go I" was a song written by August Darnell & Kevin Nance.

Machine was an American funk disco group, formed by Jay Stovall in 1967. The band started in Brooklyn, NY with the intent to create the disco equivalent of R&B message songs. The band released its self-titled debut album in 1979, which produced its most famous single "There But for the Grace of God Go I". The song describes two Latino parents named Carlos and Carmen Vidal who move out of the Bronx to protect their baby daughter. In their new surroundings, their daughter is cut off from her own heritage and becomes self-destructive from the Vidals' cosseting, and they find she is the type of person from whom all their peers are trying to protect their own children."There But for the Grace of God Go I" reached number 77 on the Billboard Hot 100 And spent ten weeks on the chart. Slant Magazine later named it the sixth greatest dance song.

The group released its second and final album Moving On in 1980 with two accompanying singles, but the album suffered from poor sales. Machine disbanded the following year, and Darnell went on to form Kid Creole and the Coconuts, who released a cover of "There But for the Grace of God Go I" in 1980. In 2009, three of the band's original members, Jay Stovall, Kevin Nance, and Clare Bathé, reformed the act for a tour.

There was a controversy when the song was released, due to a line from the song that was thought to be racist. The radio edit omitted it. In the first verse, the parents of the girl want to "find a place far away... with no blacks, no Jews, and no gays." This in no way is a reflection on the song being racist but of the racism and homophobia of the parents portrayed in the songs lyrics.

Carlo and Carmen Vidal just had a child
A lovely girl with a crooked smile
Now they gotta split 'cause the Bronx ain't fit
For a kid to grow up in
Let's find a place they say, somewhere far away
With no blacks, no Jews and no gays

Chorus:
There but for the grace of God go I
There but for the grace of God go I

Poppy and the family left the dirty streets
To find a quiet place overseas
And year after year the kid has to hear
The do's and don'ts and the dears
And when she's ten years old she digs that rock 'n' roll
But Poppy bans it from home

Chorus
There but for the grace of God go I
There but for the grace of God go I
There but for the grace of God go I

There but for the grace of God go I
There but for the grace of God go I

Baby, she turns out to be a natural freak
Gaining weight and loosing sleep
And when she's sweet sixteen she packs her things and leaves
With a man she met on the street
Carmen starts to bawl, with her head to the wall
Too much love is worse than none at all

Chorus
There but for the grace of God go I
There but for the grace of God go I

Carlo and Carmen Vidal just had a child
A lovely girl with a crooked smile
Now they gotta split 'cause the Bronx ain't fit
For a kid to grow up in
Let's find a place they say, somewhere far away
With no blacks, no Jews and no gays

Chorus
There but for the grace of God go I
There but for the grace of God go I

Poppy and the family left the dirty streets
To find a quiet place overseas
And year after year the kid has to hear
The do's and don'ts and the dears
And when she's ten years old she digs that rock 'n' roll
But Poppy bans it from home

Chorus
There but for the grace of God go I
There but for the grace of God go I


Baby, she turns out to be a natural freak
Gaining weight and loosing sleep
And when she's sweet sixteen she packs her things and leaves
With a man she met on the street
Carmen starts to bawl, with her head to the wall
Too much love is worse than none at all

Chorus
There but for the grace of God go I
There but for the grace of God go I