| Kevin Devine – The Burning City Smoking Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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Forty million refugees with no place on this earth to call their home One for every aimless graduate with nothing else to show for it but loans And those of us who make our mark use someone else’s blood Our Western stain won’t wash away, it won’t vanish in the flood It sets deeper through each hurricane and tidal wave and war: We want everything we see, and once it’s gone we just want more. Atlas had those shoulders; we’ve got Ambien and Jameson’s and blow To bind us in a bubble and keep the newsprint nightmare distant and remote But when we wake in guillotines and pitch our screaming fits When the governor strikes up the band and gags our parting lips When the worst case shows up dressed and dazzling, ready for the ball, Boy, that bubble’s bound to burst, and what a tragic way to fall. The tabloids tell us, ‘Hate the rat who strikes the subways closed and puts you out. Forget those 50 hour tunnel weeks inhaling steel dust poison through his mouth.’ Well, if he don’t deserve a pension that makes his family feel secure If we’re now so disconnected it’s our reflections we ignore And if our constant choice is skimming past the writing on the wall Than I’m sad to say we’re lost and I’m embarrassed for us all. Most days I can’t put to rest the burning city smoking in my mind So I play pretend the principals are nothing more than actors running lines And I stumble through a movie set where torture victims laugh At embedded journalists who juggle knives and dagger glass While they entertain a mob of heads of state and CEOs I stagger past anarchist extras through saloon doors painted gold I turn and I see Uncle Sam waltz out of wardrobe, ready for the shoot So I walk right up and talk to him. I tell him that I’m scared and I’m confused. And while they test the cameras out and get the lighting right While catering fills coffee cups and carves up apple pie And while the stylists trim his beard and straighten his lapels I ask his empire eyes what made him drive us straight to hell. As my daydream ends he stands ashamed, a shocked & shattered shell But there’s never any answer for my starving tongue to tell The director’s shouting ‘action!’ I’m thrown off set. It’s just as well. |
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