With Loving hands and their arms are stretched so wide they can't
Seem to take a breath knowing evil will prevail, and a million people
Seems like a lot, and a million people can't be wrong

With loving smiles, and their mouths are stretched so wide they can't even
Take a breath, knowing evil will prevail, and the magic bullet is the
Glowing mother ship, and the mother zaps you dead

With loving hands knowing evil will prevail
Knowing evil will prevail
Knowing that evil will prevail
Knowing evil will prevail
Knowing that evil will always win


Lyrics submitted by ZeroOne

Evil Will Prevail Lyrics as written by Ronald Jones Michael Ivins

Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

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Evil Will Prevail song meanings
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11 Comments

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  • +3
    General Comment

    It's about time someone put up the lyrics to the songs off of Clouds Taste Metallic.

    Anyway, I've heard this song was written and recorded in the wake of the Oklahoma City Bombing. The Lips were recording when the tragedy occured and cranked out this awesome tune as a way of venting or whatnot.

    Storm&Stresson October 15, 2004   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    I've just read Jim DeRagotis' book about the Lips, and person10101's comment more or less sums up how Wayne describes the meaning. Apparently this song was a key factor in Ronald Jones, who played guitar with the band at the time, leaving the band, as he perceived the message as a negative one, conflicting with his happy-clappy spiritual views. I think, although he was a wonderful guitarist and probably a lovely guy, that he missed the point. God only knows where the magic bullet and glowing mothership fit into all though...

    Tatchon August 20, 2007   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    Everybody acknowledges that evil will prevail because it's more powerful, but instead of losing all hope... the forces of good should just join together because even if we lose most of the time, at least we have each other and our common cause.

    person10101on May 13, 2005   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    zeroone- good point actually. evil may will all the battles, but hopefully good wins the war. though it's always hard to look at things so black and white- i think it's more about hoping we have the strength to overcome the darkness in the world that could eventually envelop us all.

    ripelivejamon April 29, 2006   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    Yeah, this is one of my favorite flips songs, probably #2 or #3. I pretty much agree with person10101, however I think that the song is too sad to say that the good people have much chance of winning the war.

    It makes me think of pacifism, like all the good people realize that it is evil to hurt anyone - even the evil people, because there is no real good and no real evil, only people who are misguided and bad situations (like natural disasters and disease) - and so all the good people can do is try to band together and convince the bad people in the world to see reason, and to try and conquer the bad situations. But that's the thing about pacifism, it rarely works as the only way of going about things because the misguided people number in the millions, they won't see reason, will kill the good people, and prevent them from conquering the bad situations.

    So the good people are sad because they know they will be overcome by the evils of the world, and the only comfort they have is in knowing they did their best and that there is a little good in this world, because they are it. This allows them to have smiles stretched so wide they can't even take a breath, they are the only ones who know true happiness because they are the only ones who understand true sadness.

    DrMamboon October 09, 2007   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    the last "evil will always win" is always a fucking gut punch to me :(

    ripelivejamon November 04, 2007   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    people can believe anything, as unfortunate as it is... and that with there belief they can cause misfortune to us all, including themselves. this song makes me smile every time I listen to it.

    gonesleepingon June 17, 2008   Link
  • 0
    Lyric Correction

    It's not 1 million people can't be wrong, it's 1 million people can be wrong.

    Darklordmaximuson May 11, 2010   Link
  • 0
    Song Meaning

    To me, Listening to this song back around election time had me see that the democrats and republicans are the same party, with loving hands we accept oversea rule. This song is about the tyrannical british totalitarian oligarchy's influeance in The United States of America's government, the magic bullet is the glowing mothership line is directly about the assualt and murder of JFK and the TBTO's figurative murder of America's sovereignty. Evil will prevail until we stop the British influeance through the CIA all the way down to the state level, as well as by abolishing the federal reserve, the two things JFK fought for until his untimely end, thus the line "Evil will always win".

    I believe Wayne is a conspiricy theorist, this is reasonable after listening to "Five Stop Mother Superior Rain" "Waitin' For Superman" "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" "The W.A.N.D." "Evil" and "Evil Will Prevail"

    discuss

    zachmo321on May 13, 2010   Link
  • -3
    General Comment

    I can't accept that a song this amazing is about something as small as the Oklahoma City Bombing.

    I feel like it might be about religion. Millions of happy, loving people joined together, knowing and accepting that evil prevails. I dunno, kind of hard to describe what I'm trying to say. Song just makes me really think of everything the yin-yang represents. Loving people balancing the necessary evil.

    ZeroOneon December 09, 2004   Link

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