This Isn't Okay (feat. Ryan Ribeiro, WLDMND & Neill Von Tally)

Please pick up the phone - my generation is on the brink
And we need you, we need you to pick up the phone

We have been saddled with debt and doubt
And a degradation of hope is our destiny
Without hope, what is there left?
What is there left when all our effort is for nothing?

We put our faith in you, you turned a profit
We try so hard and get nowhere in the end
An economy on the brink of collapse because of the greed of the few

There's no going back

When I was young I had dreams of being a someone
But then I signed my life away for an unknown future
Took out a loan that would end up owning me
Who knows if it'll ever be paid?
It'll probably follow me to the grave like everything else I leave behind

This isn't okay - it's never been okay
But it's happening nonetheless

This is what happens when a system fails its people
This is what happens when a country fails an entire generation

But can you even call this a country?
Can you even call this a generation?
If all its people are broken,
If the system was only built to satisfy the few

The system is rigged against us - the system is rigged

It's easy when you are successful to think that you did it all by yourself
And it's so easy to forget that you didn't.
You got there because a lot of things broke your way
Those breaks don't come easily for the rest of us

There was never a plan - there was never backup, not for this
My entire life has been spent wondering if I'm ever going to be okay
Financially, emotionally, and physically
No one should have to live with such worry

But worry is all I've ever known

Just once, it would be nice to know what comfort felt like
Just once, it would be nice to know how to breathe without panic
Just once, it would be nice to know how to succeed in the likes of the few

There's no going back

This goddamn machine - hungry and heartless
Feeding and preying on the wallets and pockets of the many
There's no going back to a simpler time because one does not exist

That's the current trajectory we're on -
Spiraling, spiraling out of control
"Keep going, keep going" they tell us but provide no direction

Please pick up the phone - my generation is on the brink
And we need you to accept the charges we've inherited
It's a societal obituary; a will and testament explaining
"There's no going back to a simpler time because one does not exist"

The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even the past
It's merely a time in which we felt things were simpler

I've heard that, "the greatest wealth is to live content with little"
I've only ever known little and I don't think I've ever known 'content'

My father worked his entire life and had nothing to show for it
Besides credit card debt and cancer
And I fear I'm on the same trajectory
My only hope is to find an option kinder than cancer for my final days
But at this rate, who knows?
Who the fuck knows?

The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even the past
It's merely a time in which we felt things were simpler

But there's no going back to a simpler time because one doesn't exist
There's no going back to a simpler time because one doesn't exist
There's no going back to a simpler time because one doesn't exist
There's no going back to a simpler time because one doesn't exist
There's no going back