Simply because you can breathe
Doesn't mean you're alive
Or that you really live
This life has taken its toll
She just doesn't know
How much more she can give

But here, at the top of the world
Where I raise my hands, and I clench my fists
And they stand before me, below
Demanding the answers with flips of a switch

I don't understand where you got this idea
So deeply ingrained in your head
That this world is something that you must impress
'Cause I couldn't care less

A need for revolution rising
It comes to the surface, gasping for air
And we're not putting up with this planet
One more day, much less one more year

I don't understand where you got this idea
So deeply ingrained in your head
That this world is something that you must impress
'Cause I couldn't care less

So here, and now, in our rotting nation
The blood, it pours, it's all on our hands now
We live, in fear, of our own potential
To win, to lose, it's all on our hands now

And I have an American dream
But it involves black masks and gasoline
One day I'll turn these thoughts into screams
At a world that turned its back down on me

I don't understand where you got this idea
So deeply ingrained in your head
That this world is something that you must impress
'Cause I couldn't care less


Lyrics submitted by rjbucs28

Black Masks & Gasoline Lyrics as written by Tim Mcilrath Brandon Barnes

Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

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Black Masks and Gasoline song meanings
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  • +3
    General Comment

    Why does everyone dismiss the anarchy angle so quickly? Does anyone here actualy study true anarchy? It isn't protesting and bitching. It is idealism. A world where everyone can be truely free of mindless comitments and other peoples perceptions. It doesn't work in our world today, but idealistic viewpoints, like Communism or perfect democracy don't. They are not practical. But theoreticaly possible, and models from which we can model to create a better world, if not that perfect one over the horizon.

    People today live in a mindless routine of money and social status. These things are meaningless, whether you are spiritual or not. I am 100% materialist, yet detest consumerism and the viewpoint that money and society has any meaning beyond that which we give it. I don't believe in souls or spirits, but do believe in humans and nature, and the fact that we have the potential to be something special.

    More or less, the words are saying that the world we think is important is just something that people have created, some fiction that the world subscribes to. If we want to, if we try hard enough, if we fight hard enough, we can redefine these fictions. We can go beyond that that society defines and simply get things done. We can dodge the bull and hypocracy, and the mindless rat race, and simply live as we should. As we see fit.

    Society doesn't do anything for those who are cast out by it. By redrawing society along lines that don't judge on financial or cultural standards, we can create something where everyone can find a role within it.

    TANSTAAFLon February 27, 2006   Link

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