About Me
1. Apocalypse NowYou're wrong! We're losing the war, but we're not fighting battles for land rights and not for oil. It's war in our sleep! We see the killed, hear the screams, take the pills, can't retreat. We hang flags and banners above overpasses to forget the grave plots and gunshots with thoughts of home. You thought that desert sand got cold? Wait for the siege back at home that waits at your door. I know, when you get home you'll still be fighting that war, with no boots, no shells, no flags, no freedom from the images.2. Sink or SwimUnder gasoline sunrise they fight for space on the avenue. Some hustle all their lives just to live and die with the street corner's eyes. Where they raise your rent every chance they get some sling white to survive. They’ll sell you bags, sell you themselves just to find some way up to higher ground that's safe. Can you show me one thing you've learned from this? All your life you sink or swim. For the kids who find reformation in tragedy and breath buried alive, and even when their wrists are bruised from cuffs they roll the dice. They're not suffering tonight, ‘cause when you chase cheese and bread to feed your kids there’s no time for pain, no time for hurt to steal hours away. Now they load and aim at all those who claim innocence but turn away. These are kids from back and forth, from north and south without a doubt or a choice, and innocence don't know their names. In these streets of pain cops don't come when called. There's no redemption, no miracles. Dads split like dutches and don't keep in touch with sons grown up, now setting. Now they load and aim at all those who claim innocence but turn away. These are kids from back and forth, from north and south without a doubt or a choice, and innocence don't know their names. It don't get any closer to real. They told you a different story that heaven's far from hell. They told you that no ambition is the only way you fail. They told you there's a better way to live than nine to five or serving five to ten. They told you in two thousand six we find ourselves so safe. Well show me there's a better way to live than nine to five or serving five to ten. Show me there's a different side that we have yet to see. Show me a better way to live than nine to five or serving five to ten. Show me there's a different side, here...3. Substance AbuseCan life fight through this static and silence with daylight? Am I wrong, or sometimes it feels like competition has conquered everything and left nothing but marketplaces in its trail? Am I wrong? Does this mean anything to you? “Competition, commodities! Try to saturate every market with demonstrations of imagery, some low end bass, turn the gain up, we’ll convince them of our honesty and we’ll take the stage. Merch don't sell itself you know.†Well I want you to know that you settle with so much, and you've got nerve to think I'm out of touch with kids in scenes where we played when you'd give anything to get your way? So wake up for work, put friendships in writing don't settle for trust. Don't think an inch past your world, you're going to get what you deserve. Never wanted to let anyone get in the way. But I wonder if, when your time is through if you’ll think of all the irony in “keeping it real†and “don’t forget your roots.†You sang along but you’ll never understand. You play a new town, wear a new face, any way to get close. It's just another way you give, give everything. For me, that’s not what success is. I try to level. I try to do the right thing. You dismiss all you tolerate, just demographic, just your scenery. I try to level. I try to do the right thing. Not substance for abuse, how we feel is not for taking. Not substance for abuse, these songs aren’t stones for your stepping... can't suffer any more abuse at the hands of you.4. Tax and TributeTax and tribute! We pay homage to our districts of addiction and our corners of solitude, but I won't… Our security? Their omnipotence! They'll record your actions in the absence of consent, but I…won't…stand…here…alone. Was just a matter of time until justice became the global excuse for surveillance. Just stand in line and wait. They'll call your name just cooperate. Sacrifice your truth and say that you believe you're actually safe when you don't believe.5. BirthrightFather, you look so desperate. There’s no hope in your stare and time has peeled at each wound that you’ve labored to repair. Mother, don't look so desperate though you're aware that you'll never kiss your daughters or your sons again. They fight on frontlines both without and within against their family's pain felt a generation late. They were touched at six, drunk at twelve, and depressed at sixteen. They inherit every family scar, both unseen and seen. Defeat and failure! We have reached as far as we could reach and didn't find an antidote for this restlessness inside. And I know seeds fed with hope may never grow. And all of us, with tears in eyes, we’d kill to ease each painful vice around lives on frontlines both without and within against our culture’s pain felt a generation late. Drugs and war, sex and faith, missiles, M-16's, we inherit all our culture's wars, both unseen and seen. Defeat and failure! (Self-abuse, discontent, alcohol, crystal meth, violence, violence, violence and failure) All native sons and daughters of grief and siege, of misery, I can not stand to see you bleed. Dear God, I know that we all fall but I don't want to see, I don’t want to know. I just want to feel like I'm in control. I'd tear my fucking heart if just for a moment of control… I would… I would…6. All at OnceHere you stand face to face with yourself at odds with the shapes in the mirror that remind you of where you came from then, where you’re going now. But take a chance on yourself and what you want to be. It’s better than to submit your will to gravity and live the lives of those broken limbs that come and go with no will to find their own way. So find your own way. I’ll resist what is waiting for me. I see the proof in my own reflection. It hit me there, all at once as I was looking. So find your own way, and never waste all your days inside your head looking for things that really weren’t there. So find your own way, but as you see your face with age you’ll always think of who you don’t want to be.7. Midtro (no lyrics)8. 20YEARSNGONEAfter you retired you said you’ve had enough and moved over the bridge and away from the chase and the dopers and the tours of siren songs and precinct walls. You couldn't wait to escape that place and run, now you're safe at home. But I feel the need for reparations, hop that fence, break and enter, aim that gun and pull. How’s that for law? No badge or barricade to help you keep reality away. Planted guns in Stuyvesant and all the innocence they found guilty. 20 years and gone, you’re far away. 20 years and gone, it's 401 OK. (They lay in comfort as we bleed, silent on our knees, barrel lodged between our lips, but resist) Tactics and means of intimidation, we’re robbed of our justice, still fund their pensions. Tactics and means of intimidation they protect their interests, their law. This monument of false security only exists in our minds, so take it down from inside. This monument exists just to exist and we support its weight. To serve and protect yourselves and no one else, but who will protect us from you?9. Martyr Brigade“I never thought Jihad would come for me. I've seen many things you wouldn't believe, like ten thousand faces trying to fight their way through the streets. It rained when bullets came from those in planes. They roared and brought the brightest flames I ever saw. And all those uniforms ran through the scene. All I screamed was, ‘Father, father don't leave me, don't go...’ But I can still recall the raw sound of my father's voice reaching out when I made him proud. He said, ‘Son, grown, seventeen years old, and all praise to Allah,’ he said, ‘I'm glad you've stayed peaceful, don't waste your life on hate or the violence we've taught you is so wrong.’†But next spring everything began. "All praise to Allah," he said, "I'll fight while I still can. I can't waste life in my father's house where he was shot and killed…In my father's house where he was shot and killed. I think about it more each day, sometimes I weep sometimes I pray. But everyone has a war to wage, their own jihad they need to fight. It's not suicide, but solace that you'd give your life to find when you would strap a bomb to your chest." The type of feeling that propels you when you kill someone. That cold belief that some relief will come... And now you run from everything you've learned. "All praise to Allah," he said, "so now I'll take my turn." Borders crossed, it would be the last time he would leave that house again, his father's house where his father was shot and killed. The memory is still clear of that house up on that hill, up there, where he was shot and killed. Do the risks out-weigh this sorrow? I'll take arms against enemies, against dawn, against all just to feel at ease. Through everything I've forgotten what it even means to clearly breathe with a sigh of relief, but with more that are killed, more pain needs to be released. Two fall and two thousand form. Martyr brigades not just on streets or in the ghettos. Around a phrase they congregate: "How can you pray to the sound of hurting?" Congregations of martyrs and saints: "How can you pray to the sound of hurting?" Martyr brigades and common terrorists: "How can you pray to the sound of hurting?"
