Arms Aren't Strong

Suffering
Instead let's bring
Hope to those who have to fight

Medicine
A shelter and
Food are fundamental rights

Take their side
Help them to regain their pride
'Cause we're just one step away
Take their side
Help them to regain their pride
'Cause we're just…one…just one step away

Suffocation
This administration
Keeps its own people down

No starvation
The resonation
Of our voices ever loud

The wait's been so long
And these arms aren't strong
Enough to lift the shame

So take this song
As we sing along
And try to stop this pain

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Serving Industry

Serving industry
To sign away our rights
Resign democracy

Auctioned policy
Sold to corporations
bent on tyranny

Your laws, byzantine
Smeared across the face of
Widespread poverty

Channeling Chomsky
Free form solutions
Organized to set us free

Why we'd want to compromise
We'll smash you and smash your lies
While you'd have us disaffected
standing in line
Why we'd want to tow the line
We'll no longer justify
You'll be reeling wondering when and how
It's over now

Reap profits, keep your score
Free markets kill the poor
In time

State charters weren't the cure
Export labor to ensure
The line

You spill more blood each year
Of those who've lost the fear
To die
Now it's our time
These are our lives

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Red State

What gives you cause for hatred
To legislate against your son
For the way that he was born

Long years of youth and wonder
Came crashing down at 21
And instead you gave him scorn

You wave the good book red-faced
You spew your homophobic lies
But we see through your disguise

And from your bully pulpit
Take that good book, and read it twice
Show me where you're justified

Fuck what you heard
I wanna watch your red state burn
Not one more word
Hate begets hate, an ill return

We're free to love who we choose
To fuck and fight and live our lives
But you'd tear that down in no time

Call it abomination
That's an apt word to help describe
Your intolerant small mind

Fuck what you heard
I wanna watch your red state burn
Not one more word
Hate begets hate, an ill return

Fuck what you heard

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A Hero Hated

Never taking lives
For granted
This hero hated tries
What's not said
And the amnesty
To help us see
Will leave you dead

Eats through disguise
That we wore
No more designs
That we'll soar

Take steel wool to your wounds
To cleanse ours
Transgressions become tombs
For those last hours
And with that thought
You're left to rot
The loss of power

Empty pockets tell
We're bankrupt
Morals up for sale
The call-up
Vaccuous and dead
And in his stead
We fill this cup

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Chalk Line

He'll trace a chalk line
As if to block time
In here it's so cold
His pride he'll swallow whole

A past of half-truths
Nothing left to prove
And though she'd been told
In time, it swallows whole lives

All those lost times
Buried outside
When she thought he'd left
And come undone

And all those same crimes
Lay before him
Left with no choice now
He's gotta run

Reach through a phone line
Reach back in his mind
Head rests on cold stone
It's time to take his own life

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 Wearing Off

A friendship seems in passing
Over yet lasting
I'm overwhelmed

You stagger out of our lives
You trade what's inside
For an empty shell

Rhetoric and promise
From alcoholics
Is not much else

But there's one thing that I'll demand
Respect your friends and
Respect yourself

And it's wearing off
But it's wearing my heart thin
So you write it off
Nowhere to start, nowhere to begin
And I went along
For as long as I could take
There ain't no shame in writing this thing off

Three months dry and sober
You're starting over
And we're still here

In bad times you can't pretend
Or judge your friends in
Minutes, days, or years

You write it off
And it's all
And therein lies
The stall
To bind these lies
Down inside

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October

We're being lied to
By the ones that we elect
They further their agendas
While they keep us all in check

But what they've missed
Is one good reason
And if I resist
Will they call it treason

And I'm dreading this October
When they march us off to war
For rhetoric and posture
What will we have to show for

It's daddy's grudge
From his failed attempt
To replace one tyrant with one
From this continent

I don't support their cause
But I don't support a war
That will leave thousands dead
With nothing left to show for

And I'm dreading this October
When they march us off to war
For rhetoric and posture
What will we have to show for
And when it's all over
How many will have died
And all we'll have to show for
Is their lies

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Excuses Can't Escape

Then came the phone call
It was the last fall
In the winter of your life

Those words that disarm
You bow your head, and raise your fist
And shout out, "why?"
You want to know

This is your cross
That you have to bear
Excuses can't escape
You're not prepared
To raise a small child
And that mirror
Stares back with a face
You never thought you'd see
And now you're scared
To look inside...

This tiny child
Can reconcile
All the wrong things you have done

Her trust it drives you
Small hands that hold your heart
To guide you through these times
Don't falter now

Like it or not
She's your one shot
To be a hero

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Lashing Out

Now your thoughts are abstract
They knock you off track
You won't stop reading
To stop the bleeding

This is not your last stop
A smaller grave plot
To fall into
As all this bullshit swirls around you

And your heart feels twisted
And filled with pain
You clench your fist and
Lash out again

Rolling through the last town
On your way down
No time for treating
No loss for needing

Hands outstretched a last grasp
Your mouth a last gasp
You're passing through
And all this bullshit still astounds you

Two fists are stronger than one
One heart beats louder than none
When it's all been said and done
No one in this world can save you

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