A Few Words Before We Go

Now do you take pride in your constant state of sadness?
Do you think that it's romantic? Do you find it grand and tragic?
You better find a snappy way to make sure you stand out on a shelf
Any Renaissance man will tell you that your art wont sell itself

So I been watching my words make sure I'm posting on brand
Everything is scripted it just never sounds planed
An actor and a singer and a liar and a stripper
Do the same jobs wearing different clothes

But I was given this body it's filled with blemishes and flaws
And this asymmetric face that no designer shirt could solve
So I ain't gonna sell no records based on my sex appeal
So I better make sure that every fucking word I write is real

Why not make something easy? Just get tossed into a playlist
Make some Spotify cash by going totally unnoticed
The thought has crossed my mind and I ain't too proud to admit it
You gotta take anything that you can get
But I'm not gonna take it just yet.

I dreamt of a baby it was choking on single use plastic
And a congress man was claiming that's not a cause for panic
Then he opened up his coat and out spilled oil covered bills
And he tried to use them to clean the blood out from his finger nails

So I asked him what's your plan for when the water rises up?
Mine's to fashion a raft out of Chick-Fa-Ley styrofoam cups
That old man's gonna die along with his degenerate ideals
But these cups are gonna out live all of us

What profit do you turn when you ignore the science?
And what prophet live or dead would be maintaining silence?
Do you sleep well at night with all these deaths on your conscience?
Is your fortune 500 keeping you warm?

And I think the biggest lie we tell ourselves is you can't buy an election
Just try and swallow that pill down when you see how much the winners spend
And Our fearless leaders only serve the highest bidders
They're not the heroes that they'd have you to believe
They'd be nothing if not for greed

Now how do you tell a child that this world is gonna kill him?
Either slowly and surly or in a sudden cataclysm?

One, Two, Three, Four,
How badly I wish that I had all the answers for him
To live a guilt-free life and leave 0 carbon foot print

But I got stars and stripes in my accent
My birthplace always shows
You can take the boy out of America
But you know how the rest of the phrase goes
Who would I be serving if I disserted my home?
You can only run so far from your bloodline

And I was born and raised on land that was stolen
By my grandfather's father and his father before him
I'm a side effect of genocide
I'm probably gonna spend the rest of my life
Attempting to empathize without ever being patronizing

What a fool I am to task myself with fixing the world
When the only thing I'm good for are these chords and my words
As if screaming into microphones could solve anything
But at least I'm doing something
This is all that I know how to do
I'm just trying to speak some truth