1. |
Shame
02:54
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From the Salton Sea to the foreign shore,
to heed the burning want, we'll destroy it all.
Lone bird on a wire where there used to be more,
What shame we sow, what shame we sow.
A rat in a cage, a canary in the mine.
Stuck under the weight of being born in this time.
If you could do it again, would you even change one thing?
We sow, what shame we sow, what shame we sow.
A bombed out pillbox on a beachhead high,
A childs hand in a loom on a line,
A bloody price for this lavish life,
What shame we sow, what shame we sow.
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2. |
What Are We Even Doing?
03:04
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To the empire builders, to the mothers and their love,
To dissociated daughters left to wonder what went wrong.
To the sons of tomorrow with a bigger cross to bear,
They were not the ones who wanted this, but now they're forced to care.
And it's all so wrong,
What are we even doing?
Do you feel so small, so small?
To the crooks in the capitol creating some new fear
There's a monster in your bedroom and another over there
To the grand machinations of a system come undone
To the Nazis waving crimson flags on highway 31
And it's all so wrong,
What are we even doing?
Do you feel so small, so small?
What a privilege to parade around, pretending it's not there.
It's across the deep wide ocean, it's the monumental scare.
It's a finger on the trigger, the overflowing pot,
It's the never ending fester and the ever present rot.
And it's all so wrong,
What are we even doing?
Do you feel so small, so small?
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3. |
Tappan Zee
03:31
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Those highway nights, ticker tape of highway lights
Skitter cross the floorboard like a strobe.
And on the velour seats, scrawled hand rubbed messages,
Wish I knew what they'd mean, across the Tappan Zee.
We left something more, left as children / came back to war.
When Bush broke through the radio waves.
We plucked apples from the trees, post-modern Adam and Eve,
and we pretended that nothing had changed.
But everything had changed, everything had changed.
A dividing line between what I thought was right,
and what the next twenty years would show.
The beheaded press, the internet the wild west,
and you wonder where did little me go?
Time is a vacuum to some New Paltz town,
Time is a ferry on the Long Island sound
Time is a windmill over Zaanse-Schans seas,
Time is the last ring of a dying tree.
We left something more, left as children / came back to war.
When Bush broke through the radio waves.
He told us nothing would be the same,
And that the brown man was to blame,
and freedom was on its way.
And everything had changed.
Everything had changed.
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4. |
Field Notes From Hell
03:56
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It's not enough to be grateful, we need anger in the streets.
Not two opposing teams.
For our brothers and our sisters of the post-truth world,
Back strapped infants in Congolese hell.
Raffia sacks are loaded down to tweet the next smoking gun,
Sirens shift across the town, sirens shift across the lawn.
Pervasive monoculture, and we're all taking part.
Stick our hands into our pockets, put our hands into the pot.
They'll flock to the high ground like migrating birds,
Oil slick wings, invisible wounds.
For the crime of survival, we'll broadcast our doubts,
Paint them as heretics and cast them back out.
Raffia sacks are loaded down to tweet the next smoking gun,
Revolution on the ground, revolutions of the sun.
It's the painful conversations that often must be done.
Stick our hands into our pockets, put our hands into the pot.
Too many years of peace, too many years of fun.
This is the price of learning what we've really done.
To the mountains of debris, to the hills of toxic waste.
Feed from the hands of strangers and spit it in their face.
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5. |
Born in a Sick Bay
05:08
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Born in a sick bay, what have we done to you?
Born to a world that isn't kind.
Born in a weird place, in a very weird time.
But that's alright, cause you're alright.
A billion years of dust and circumstance,
have brought us to this sterile room.
To teach a good soul to be a good soul
is all I'm here to do.
All of the time we have in a paper bag with a pinhole leak.
I've got to stop its flow, don't want you to grow to hate me.
Born in a sick place, what have we done to you?
Born to a world without a soul.
Born at the edge of the widening maw.
But that's alright, cause we're alright (for now, for now..)
All of the time we have in an overhand, and it's unbinding.
I've got to tie that rope, don't want you to grow to hate me.
All of the time we have slipping through our hands,
makes me want to scream.
Oh, just to watch you grow,
It's a thrill and blow to my inner being.
All of the time we have in a paper bag with a pinhole leak.
I've got to stop its flow, don't want you to grow to hate me.
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6. |
The Jackboot Looming
05:23
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The grass grows thicker 'round the grave of your youth.
Wide in scope, and minimal in truth.
Like a jackboot stamping all the thoughts in the drawer,
and the kids are too scared to think anymore.
We took the church bells and melted them to guns.
We sucked the smoke stacks right into our lungs.
For the love of country, for the plight of man,
we are just doing what we can.
Feathers fall, and so we do.
From a powerhouse to a pawn shop, naturally.
Hammers fall and nails obey.
We drift like ice flows as the current slows, and then we melt away.
And then one day you look back and it's all changed,
The folks are the same, but their thoughts are deranged.
Lead by a promise of power, and addiction to hate.
We are all locked inside this cage.
Tongue-tied in the country,
Head sick in the streets,
Airsick in the mountains,
Yeah, we are what we eat.
The great oscillator divides and demeans,
we are just taking what we need.
Feathers fall, and so we do.
From a powerhouse to a pawn shop, naturally.
Hammers fall and nails obey.
We drift like ice flows as the current slows, and then we melt away.
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7. |
The Wonder
03:16
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What a difference,
What a difference you have made.
What a wonder,
What a wonderful tear in time and space.
Such a sweet one, your smiling face.
Grateful, so grateful to hold you in steady pace.
Through the eyes of a child, and the wonder that they see,
We all came out of it bitter and angry.
Just want to preserve this, the kindness that you keep,
Your awe of everything means everything to me.
The endless fascinated sounds,
Pointed fingers that linger on rows of houses,
What a wonder, what a wonderful time this is,
And despite it all, the war and the fall, I feel privileged
Through the eyes of a child, and the wonder that they see,
We all came out of it bitter and angry.
Just want to preserve this, the kindness that you keep,
Your awe of everything means everything to me.
Your awe of everything means everything, D.
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8. |
Sarajevo Sunrise
02:30
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We're at the edge of a widening maw,
How many blows can this building take?
The icy lake is beginning to thaw,
And they're saying "let them eat cake"
The most privileged class in history,
cry famine when there's a feast,
persecution while they pray,
and wolf when there's a sheep.
It's pretty clear that we won't go quiet,
I'm pretty sure that he's here to stay,
We've already had ten years of this bullshit,
and this fucker won't go away.
Word salad spitting propaganda,
cult members grovel at his feet,
good people threw their shepherd away,
and now they flock like sheep.
One last Sarajevo sunrise for the world of peace,
One last tired observation of dead history,
The facade has cracked and there's a monster underneath.
The chicken's coming home to roost,
The devil's coming home to feast
Time turns mountains to meadows,
Like the shadows of a serpents teeth.
Beware chances, fear, and hope.
For they'll lead you down the same dark street.
There's something rotten in the USA.
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9. |
Two Heads, One Beast
02:58
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Two heads, one beast.
We fall in pieces.
The rot set in on glossy screens.
No attention, no thought, no sense.
Burning books and burning crosses,
Vicious swells and violent tosses.
Cycles of misery, do unto you what was done to me.
No happiness, just brittle dreams,
Become one with the machine.
Deep trauma, deep trouble,
Deep state on the double.
Deep learning went out the door,
A casualty of televised war.
Endless, it's endless.
The brain fog's relentless.
Are you in there? Are you in there?
Are you even there anymore?
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10. |
In Time
03:54
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In time, this will all fade away.
No more worries, no more pain.
No more instability.
Oh love of mine, one day you and I will die.
Every fracture will be erased,
Drive the cosmic interstate.
From first cries,
First steps, first time I saw your eyes.
To the stumbled words, hospital lights,
the tired appeasement.
The in-between feels like Deja vu in a day dream.
How did time pass by so quickly?
It all feels like yesterday.
How we grow, how we fall.
All these moments build to nothing, no, nothing at all.
Held your hand, learned to crawl,
Now I hold it and I feel so terribly goddamn small.
What's it for? A flash of light?
There's never happy endings to this fleeting life,
and it flies on by.
The shaky hands, the IV drip,
The incessant hum, the mechanical grip.
This is the way we all go,
Not with a bang, but with a whimper in the night you know.
Step into the universal truth.
And succumb to the invisible teeth of fear.
Cause it's coming for you,
and it's coming for me,
it's coming for all of us,
It's here.
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