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Santigold – The Keepers Lyrics 13 years ago
The clip shows an ideal family from the 50s-60s with some of the nastier references to the present in the form of grandma sitting alone for the TV and the filming of the dying(?) milkman on a cellphone.
Pitchfork told me Santi directed the video herself.

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Santigold – The Keepers Lyrics 13 years ago
I see at as a critique on the American society as a whole and how democracy is working right now.

Chorus:
The keepers is the US population, a house burning down speaks for itself.

Verse 1 is in general a conversation with somebody who has given up on democracy/influencing his own life in a political way:
I walk blind with smoke in my eyes
=I'm confused
It's like we don't know where we been
=Like we don't remember the past
That's it, boy, just state your case
=What do you actually want
You're just as wrong as you were then
=I remember what you've done (nothing) or giving up an democracy is wrong
One tough move throw your hands up
=It's tough to stand out in the crowd, to make yourself known
Say I don't make no rules
=I'm not a politician/government official
No one even knows I'm here
=I'm just an ordinary citizen in the system
Now its on you to man up
=speaks for itself
You say no weight'll hang on what you say
=you say your voice has no influence

Verse 2 is all about the American dream and how fictitious this actually is:
Ask me why a dream gets you by
=dreaming is a powerful way of getting by daily life
But let it want, turns a dangerous thing
=Be careful not to let them control your thinking and thus life
Watch out for it, it snakes right past
=dreaming is a tempting mistress
Then turns around and it sucks you in
=speaks for itself
What happens when you get stuck
=speaks for itself
Get to the bottom of the illusion that you're in
=sometimes you have to get in shit deeper to really know your in shit
From the roots now it's shook up
=from the bottom you know there is something wrong and you can build on that
Know that what ails without will do you in
=This on was hard as a non native speaker. But I think that without any effort put into something it's worth nothing as well. Something that ails is something that does you harm or makes you feel not so well.

Verse 3 The text from above doesn't always resemble the lyrics I'm hearing:
And not a thing I've done Abates my fear
=It's still as scary to me as to you although I'm sort of famous (or something)

And not a thing I've done Abates (my fear >this one is actually not there, booklets can be wrong)
And still although our hearts can't run (I hear 1 voice coming through the other, 1 makes the text as posted with hearts and one says And still I never have to run)
=Nothing has made it less hard, but still I never had to run from it. Or still my loved ones cannot get away

We are gone
We are gone
On the heels of all we have done, know
=On our behavior towards democracy we are non existent

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