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Black Lungs Lyrics
Do you cross your heart when you hope to die?
Are you sleeping deep in the hurricane?
IVs in the arm, forgetting to feel
We're crawling on all fours
Will you fall on that sword at the second coming?
You're gonna taste the ash and dust
'Cause this world is dying in our arms
Now the wheels are turning
What would you do to stay alive if the planet was burning?
You wanna make your hell a reality?
Black lungs for the young if they dare to breathe
(If they dare to breathe, woah)
Sure sounds like heaven to me
You've gotta cut the roots to kill the weeds
No place to go if we don't believe
(If we don't believe, woah)
Good Lord, it's enough to plague a saint
Give us a Judas steer we can deify
Yeah, we all pretend we're the renegades
So wash us away, garroted by a halo
Take a bow, 'cause time's running out
There's no doubt that the end is coming
You're gonna taste the ash, you're gonna taste the dust
'Cause this world is dying in our arms
Now the wheels are turning
What would you do to stay alive if the planet was burning?
You wanna make your hell a reality?
Black lungs for the young if they dare to breathe
(If they dare to breathe, woah)
Sure sounds like heaven to me
You've gotta cut the roots to kill the weeds
No place to go if we don't believe
(If we don't believe, woah)
Good Lord, it's enough to plague a saint
Good Lord, it's enough to plague a saint
Post love, post truth, justice lays bound
And black bagged ready for the guillotine
We can all plead guilty when they ask
"Where were you when the Gods clipped the wings of the Phoenix?"
They clipped the wings of the Phoenix
When will we wrestle the world from the fools and their gold, and their fucking covenant?
We'll be waiting
Will enough be enough when we're holding on for dear life
You wanna make your hell a reality?
Black lungs for the young if they dare to breathe
(If they dare to breathe, woah)
Sure sounds like heaven to me
You've gotta cut the roots to kill the weeds
No place to go if we don't believe
(If we don't believe, woah)
Good Lord, it's enough to plague a saint
It's enough to plague a saint
It's enough to plague a saint
It's enough to plague a saint
We can all plead guilty when they ask
"Where were you when the Gods clipped the wings of the Phoenix?"
Are you sleeping deep in the hurricane?
IVs in the arm, forgetting to feel
We're crawling on all fours
Will you fall on that sword at the second coming?
You're gonna taste the ash and dust
'Cause this world is dying in our arms
What would you do to stay alive if the planet was burning?
Black lungs for the young if they dare to breathe
(If they dare to breathe, woah)
Sure sounds like heaven to me
You've gotta cut the roots to kill the weeds
No place to go if we don't believe
(If we don't believe, woah)
Good Lord, it's enough to plague a saint
Yeah, we all pretend we're the renegades
So wash us away, garroted by a halo
Take a bow, 'cause time's running out
There's no doubt that the end is coming
You're gonna taste the ash, you're gonna taste the dust
'Cause this world is dying in our arms
What would you do to stay alive if the planet was burning?
Black lungs for the young if they dare to breathe
(If they dare to breathe, woah)
Sure sounds like heaven to me
You've gotta cut the roots to kill the weeds
No place to go if we don't believe
(If we don't believe, woah)
Good Lord, it's enough to plague a saint
And black bagged ready for the guillotine
We can all plead guilty when they ask
"Where were you when the Gods clipped the wings of the Phoenix?"
They clipped the wings of the Phoenix
When will we wrestle the world from the fools and their gold, and their fucking covenant?
We'll be waiting
Will enough be enough when we're holding on for dear life
Black lungs for the young if they dare to breathe
(If they dare to breathe, woah)
Sure sounds like heaven to me
You've gotta cut the roots to kill the weeds
No place to go if we don't believe
(If we don't believe, woah)
Good Lord, it's enough to plague a saint
It's enough to plague a saint
It's enough to plague a saint
It's enough to plague a saint
"Where were you when the Gods clipped the wings of the Phoenix?"
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I think this is essentially about how we're all going to hell in a hand basket with the way the world is going at this point. We need to go in a better direction, we need to see things for what they are instead of how we imagine them to be. We need to get real and start over or we'll all be screwed in the end.
A lot of religious undertones here, but I think he’s using religious imagery we in the west are all familiar with illustrate a point about our elites. The “Gods” clipping the wings of the Phoenix are the elites that have created a system that virtually can’t be fought against or reset, and we all need to get rid of them (cutting the roots of the weeds). No place to go if we don’t believe - the tyrannical narrative that’s being forced down all of our throats by our overlords while they steal and kill and destroy to continue further enriching themselves at everyone else’s expense. We are heading to hell on earth as if life isn’t hard enough already, and if we all collectively don’t come to terms with the lies and do something to preserve the original free market system built on the notion that every individual person matters equally then we will be lost forever to the new techno-tyranny that’s emerging rapidly.
I think he uses this theme in other songs as well but this one is more explicit and I, of course, described the “system” in my own terms but it really is what’s happening all around us while we all sit back not knowing what to do because they’ve built such an impenetrable system and cut off all peaceful means of reform and yet violent revolutions always end up worse, so that’s also not a solution.