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Empire Lyrics
In national elections
In songs raised on high
With stirring emotions
As tears fill our eyes
In democratic fever
For national defense
I am a mountain
I am a mountain
I am a mountain
Like birds upon a fence
Like birds upon a fence
Young artists and writers
Please heed the call
What's good for business
Is good for us all
And as it is in Nature
So it is in life
The weak among us perish
The weak among us perish
The weak among us perish
The strong alone will survive
The strong alone will survive
Voices like thunder
Decisions like steel
The past and the future
They belong to us all
From every mountain
The water and the air
The world that we've created
The world that we've created
The world that we've created
By working hand in hand
By working hand in hand
In songs raised on high
With stirring emotions
As tears fill our eyes
For national defense
I am a mountain
I am a mountain
I am a mountain
Like birds upon a fence
Like birds upon a fence
Please heed the call
What's good for business
Is good for us all
So it is in life
The weak among us perish
The weak among us perish
The weak among us perish
The strong alone will survive
The strong alone will survive
Decisions like steel
The past and the future
They belong to us all
The water and the air
The world that we've created
The world that we've created
The world that we've created
By working hand in hand
By working hand in hand
Song Info
Submitted by
windmills221b On Feb 17, 2005
More David Byrne
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Seems like such a happy song. But I take it as being loaded with irony. The first verses seem to be in reference to the heated Bush elections. And if you take that tone and cary it to the end where he says
From every mountain The water and the land The world that we've created The world that we've created The world that we've created By working hand in hand By working hand in hand
then it means something different. To me, we are supposed to look at everything we've done and be ashamed. It's our fault. We've worked together to make quite a mess.
In a live performance of this song, David said he wrote this song as a sort of capitalist national anthem, but that he didn't really believe in it. There is definitely a lot of irony in this one.