No Future Shock Lyrics

Lyric discussion by GeekyGerald 

Cover art for No Future Shock lyrics by TV on the Radio

This is an anthem dedicated to our unsustainable future and political unrest wrapped in a beat that can be listened to mindlessly as if it was a simple dance song. Brilliant if you ask me.

"you burned up all your credit on a family of kids who pop your pills and smoke your pipe and after the war broke your piggy bank the bastards broke the world this time"

The wars in the middle-east coupled with multiple bad economic decisions put the US into debt.

"so we sleep with our guns and no jive won't get done but we're heavy-hand high oh stuck in the middle of a silly little riddle control your dam, control till it blows your mind"

Some Americans just don't trust the government anymore, to the point that even the political officials don't trust each other enough to get anything productive done.

"oh mother dear, did they really cop a feel before they robbed you blind? we're all lacking nourishment we searched around the world looks like a man's gonna drop"

The economic crisis robbed many people of their retirement benefits and investments.

"tell tell tell me, baby girl born into this burning world are you ready?"

The current generation is expected to clean up the mess that we inherited, the question is if we're ready to finally fix things instead of messing things up further.

"here come the cops to lock us up for smoking crunk while mining corps blow mountain tops I mean, really?"

Mountaintop removal mining is a serious environmental concern, miners blow the tops off of mountains to strip what resources they can from the area as fast as possible, polluting the surrounding areas with toxic mining byproducts and dust in ways that can't be mitigated easily. It's considered an almost criminal act that mining corporations are allowed to get away with. This is an obvious comparison to how the individual is arrested for using drugs while corporations can rape the environment and get away scot-free.

My Interpretation