Honestly, I don't see where you guys are coming up with a war. I interpret this as a call to be aware of the homeless people and to do something to help. How it says, "Getting trampled under the boots of progress" is reffering to the government's attempts to solve the poverty issue by plowing right over it and calling it progress, ironically. "Ignore the pleading of the nameless faces" is obviously an example of streetside beggars being ignored by people who can help and just don't want to. The next line is "With our backs against a wall, how long till we fall?", meaning how they are being oppressed and rejected by society, how much time will it take for them to collapse. "Do away with all the underprivleged" ties into the next line, "Their demographic doesn't fit your image". Combined, these lines mean that we as Americans are trying to diminish the homeless population through wrong methods because homelessness should'nt be an image of America. Now, "Turn your blind eye when duty calls" is saying how we like to say we make a difference, but when it's time to actually do something we ignore our obligation to do it. The verse is, in my opinion, the best part of the song, because that's where the song really explains why we should change. I think the door they talk about in "Cuz now they're tearing down our doors" is actually the closet door of America, where we like to keep our less desirable aspects of our country; and how they're "breaking it down" and therefore becoming more prominent. The woman screaming out the window in the next lines is America, and she's afraid of how bad things will become. The next section is talking about how we couldn't care less about how companies are trying to profit from these peoples homelessness. After that is the line, "Throw them out and call it relocation; Lower-income-housing quick solutions", which I interpret to mean how the government is trying to use so-called 'solutions' to 'help' these people, but it doesn't help anything so they try to disguise it. For example, both Obama and Bush had plans for decreasing homelessness, but have any of your own city's beggars gone away or disappeared? But still, they both claimed it was doing something, but to only an extent it was. The title line "Generation Lost" is the most important part of the song, because it can be understood different ways. One interpretation is that it's reffering to this generation's regular citizens, who can only look on while other people suffer, therefore being morally lost. Or, it could mean the homeless people whose generation is lost in the sense that it can't contribute to society. What if there were homeless geniuses out there who had the potential to solve America's real problems? The next section, "Now...Minutes" is saying how we always put off doing something to help, and not even caring about their lives. The section "Now...Free" puts the song in the perspective of a homeless person, and how he's begging for just a little care and human decency while the rest of the world ignores him. The final lines, "Let's...over" puts another person with the homeless man from the previous few lines. This person is seeing it righteously, trying to talk with the man and believing that previous ideas of homeless people should be discarded and replaced with understanding that homeless people are still humans. If you read through this top to bottom, thank you. Anyway, that's my take.
Honestly, I don't see where you guys are coming up with a war. I interpret this as a call to be aware of the homeless people and to do something to help. How it says, "Getting trampled under the boots of progress" is reffering to the government's attempts to solve the poverty issue by plowing right over it and calling it progress, ironically. "Ignore the pleading of the nameless faces" is obviously an example of streetside beggars being ignored by people who can help and just don't want to. The next line is "With our backs against a wall, how long till we fall?", meaning how they are being oppressed and rejected by society, how much time will it take for them to collapse. "Do away with all the underprivleged" ties into the next line, "Their demographic doesn't fit your image". Combined, these lines mean that we as Americans are trying to diminish the homeless population through wrong methods because homelessness should'nt be an image of America. Now, "Turn your blind eye when duty calls" is saying how we like to say we make a difference, but when it's time to actually do something we ignore our obligation to do it. The verse is, in my opinion, the best part of the song, because that's where the song really explains why we should change. I think the door they talk about in "Cuz now they're tearing down our doors" is actually the closet door of America, where we like to keep our less desirable aspects of our country; and how they're "breaking it down" and therefore becoming more prominent. The woman screaming out the window in the next lines is America, and she's afraid of how bad things will become. The next section is talking about how we couldn't care less about how companies are trying to profit from these peoples homelessness. After that is the line, "Throw them out and call it relocation; Lower-income-housing quick solutions", which I interpret to mean how the government is trying to use so-called 'solutions' to 'help' these people, but it doesn't help anything so they try to disguise it. For example, both Obama and Bush had plans for decreasing homelessness, but have any of your own city's beggars gone away or disappeared? But still, they both claimed it was doing something, but to only an extent it was. The title line "Generation Lost" is the most important part of the song, because it can be understood different ways. One interpretation is that it's reffering to this generation's regular citizens, who can only look on while other people suffer, therefore being morally lost. Or, it could mean the homeless people whose generation is lost in the sense that it can't contribute to society. What if there were homeless geniuses out there who had the potential to solve America's real problems? The next section, "Now...Minutes" is saying how we always put off doing something to help, and not even caring about their lives. The section "Now...Free" puts the song in the perspective of a homeless person, and how he's begging for just a little care and human decency while the rest of the world ignores him. The final lines, "Let's...over" puts another person with the homeless man from the previous few lines. This person is seeing it righteously, trying to talk with the man and believing that previous ideas of homeless people should be discarded and replaced with understanding that homeless people are still humans. If you read through this top to bottom, thank you. Anyway, that's my take.