--The High Cost of Happy Faces (lyrics)
--Battles Lost (lyrics)
--Paralyzed (lyrics)
--Mission Accomplished (lyrics)
--Ballad of the Sinner Boy (lyrics)
--Face in the Crowd (lyrics)
--Nothing to Say (lyrics)
--General Strike (lyrics)
--No Chance (lyrics)
--It Can't Happen Here (lyrics)
--Scapegoat (lyrics)
The High Cost Of Happy Faces
The high cost of happy faces
Three jobs at three stores:
making less, working more.
The hidden cost of Wal-Mart saves –
you’re the customer and the slave.
From the day you’re born ‘till they put you in the Earth,
minimum wage is all you’re worth,
and even less if you’re overseas
chained to a sewing machine.
Earn your chips.
Cash ‘em in.
Feudalism under fascism.
Don’t rock the boat.
Know your place.
Wear the blue vest with the happy face
At first it seemed like a good idea:
Low prices? We need that here!
But they didn’t give their workers health care,
so now it’s paid for by our taxes.
Main street USA’s out of business,
so we’ll settle for what they give us.
Uncle Walt and Uncle Sam have been working on a plan...
Government and industry,
hand in hand,
rule the consumers to rule the land.
Don’t rock the boat.
Know your place.
Wear the blue vest with the happy face.
So lace ‘em up.
Punch the clock.
Live your life on the chopping block.
Pucker up and kiss some ass.
Each paycheck could be your last.
‘Cos where else are you gonna go?
The local shops have all been closed.
The union jobs at the factories are nothing more than memories.
Get back to work!
At attention!
Meet the new boss.
The parasite, the albatross,
circling around you until you die
as the life drains slowly from your eyes.
Battles Lost
You say you want to be a star,
so you’ve gotta sacrifice some of who you are.
Who cares who the sponsor is?
Your message is precious and you’re doin’ it for the kids
like the kids who sewed the skate shoes
to buy the gear that the tour let’s you use.
Ain’t it time to get off your soapbox?
We checked your merch.
It’s made in sweatshops.
You want to sell us something special
to make us all feel like we’re rebels.
You take from us what we build here
and sell it back in a couple years.
Turn passion to profit.
Turn profit to excuses.
Anthems hide corporate truces.
Your battle cry is useless.
We’ve got a seed of hope in the basements of Boston.
We’ll keep singing songs all lost on those who just want to hear
their own voice bouncing off the mirror.
This one’s for the underground and every punk left in this town.
Let the rock stars become icons.
Fuck ‘em all.
I’ll be glad when they’re gone.
Turn passion to profit, you prophet of excuses.
Anthems hide corporate truces.
Your battle cry is useless.
And if you’ve got a problem with this,
it’s up to you to check your conscience.
You call it revolution. We call it the same old shit.
Capture our hopes and dreams.
Pimp ‘em out on your DVD.
Drill for blood and our screams.
Sell ‘em off to MTV.
When you scream your eyes are shut.
I guess mine would be too if I were you.
So, thank you.
Thanks to you our battle’s lost.
Our battle’s lost before it has been fought.
Paralyzed
God only knows
how we fight and we try.
Who knows what for
but we bleed and we die.
You think this is easy,
you think I don’t mind
but the glare in my eyes
is making me blind.
Caught in the headlights.
They say that life is
what you make of it,
but I hope and I pray
this ain’t all I get.
You say it’s just a puddle
but I’m drowning in it.
I can’t catch my breath
and it’s making me sick.
Caught in the headlights
Who am I?
Slowly spreading stain,
Black as night,
Cold as the rain.
Caught in the headlights
Mission Accomplished
Roadside bombs and machine gun blasts.
Corpses swinging from a bridge.
Hard to say just what we’re doing,
but you know you gotta fight to win.
The blood is red.
The gun ain’t smoking.
Keeping our mouths shut while we choke and hold it down,
stuck in a rut, trying to slam a door that won’t shut.
Machine guns in airports,
a throwback to brownshirts.
3,2,1 countdown to the cannibal news.
Dressed to kill, 18 years old.
Locked and loaded, bought and sold.
Who needs graves when you’ve got sand to enter with no exit plan?
American youth figure it out.
It ain’t nothin’ but a body count.
Get sent home in a box.
Fight to win at any cost.
Machine guns in airports,
a throwback to brownshirts.
3,2,1 countdown to the cannibal news.
Count the bodies.
Cut the losses.
Lose a limb for the president’s bosses.
Bring your guns.
Bring your crosses.
You’ll bring ‘em both back in your coffin.
Grind it out.
Suck it up.
Hunker down.
Wish ‘em luck.
Keep the faith.
Stay the course.
Shock and awe.
Crush with force.
Machine guns in airports,
a throwback to brownshirts.
3,2,1 countdown to the cannibal news.
A life goes out like a fire in a steady rain of bullets.
Apologies will all fall short.
Put more machine guns in the airports.
One man playing god.
Fight terror for freedom.
One man playing god.
Don’t mess with Texas.
One man playing god.
Ballad of the Sinner Boy
Lyrics adapted from a poem by the great Langston Hughes (1902-1967).
Face in the Crowd
We won’t sit down and we won’t shut up.
We might be young, but we know what’s up.
We’re working too hard and not paid enough,
because you say times are tough.
You pay us pennies while you live it up.
Sure doesn’t look like you’ve got it rough.
You line your pockets. We’re just stuck.
You get yours no matter what.
Service economy – who’s it serve?
You don’t pay us what we deserve.
I gotta work but I don’t like what I’m seeing.
We’re barely treated like human beings.
You are just a face in the crowd.
One big company? One big union!
This fight came to me. It wasn’t chosen.
All of us are under attack.
Across the globe we’ve gotta have each others backs.
I’ll make my statement out the speakers,
not by the label on my sneakers.
This free market doesn’t feel so free.
What did corporate power ever do for me?
I’ll take dignity and union-made over being your wage slave.
We want respect for every sister and brother,
not a race to the bottom against each other.
You don’t care how we live or die
as long as you protect your bottom line.
I gotta work but I don’t like what I’m seeing.
Everybody 1, 2, 3, and...
You are just a face in the crowd.
Dependable, exploitable, disposable, replaceable face in the crowd.
Dependable, exploitable, disposable, fed up!
Face in the crowd.
Nothing to Say
Nosebleed date rape.
Take what you can take.
Post-hip dipshit.
A godamn embarrassment.
A thousand excuses with nothing to say.
Your bands new record has nothing to say.
You just keep talking, but you’ve got nothing.
Nothing to say.
Glue the locks.
Settle the score with some anthrax on your dance floor.
Cut the lights.
Disaster strikes.
We see you in your true light:
Trust fund punk turned socialite.
You changed yourself just so you’d fit this corporate sponsored disco bullshit.
Circling like a vulture, you feed off our subculture.
You want fans more than friends.
Different means towards different ends.
Push back.
Make room.
Red carpet syndrome.
Allston celebrity,
born in Connecticut.
Nothing to say.
General Strike
Throw down your tools of labor
and resist those you work for.
They cannot run the government
without the peoples' consent.
General strike! General strike!
We can stop the country if we’re marching in the streets.
General strike! General strike!
Shelter for everyone and everyone can eat.
We can have our forty-hour week back.
We can have our decent living wages back.
We can have paid health benefits back.
All we gotta do is fight back.
General strike! General strike!
We can stop the country if we’re marching in the streets.
General strike! General strike!
Shelter for everyone and everyone can eat.
We can stop the country if we're marching in the streets.
We can stop the fucking country!
No Chance
Earn your score,
don’t ask what for.
They’ll treat you like an animal
to set an example.
You may try to resist
but they won’t let you loose,
and all of your defiance
will be met with more abuse.
No chance for you.
No choice for you.
No place for you.
Nothing for you but
incarceration.
Locked up in a classroom
is where you spend your time.
They try to regulate
your appearance and your mind.
When you’re treated like an inmate
and treated like a fool,
is it any wonder
kids don’t wanna go to school?
The history they teach
is like cafeteria food,
always insufficient
and monotonous and crude.
They teach you information
that you don’t wanna know
and silence your dissent
to defend the status quo.
There’s a chance for us.
There’s a choice for us.
There’s a place for us.
Something else is out there for us.
It Can't Happen Here
It can’t happen here.
It can’t happen here.
It can’t.
All hail the fearless coward.
All hail his stolen power.
In the shadows of our darkest hour,
a throne rises from two fallen towers.
Promise you will not relent.
Rape the law to smash dissent.
Promise safety you can’t create.
Red state.
Blue state.
Fascist state.
Always marching forward.
Always marching, marching across our backs.
Vote by machine.
Die by tribunal.
You’ve all slept through your own damn funeral.
Why were you so godamn distracted?
Can’t you see what has fucking happened?
All of the fish take the same bait.
Hook in your mouth,
ask if it’s too late.
Always marching forward.
Always marching, marching across our backs.
It has happened here.
It has happened here.
It has happened here.
It has happened here.
Scapegoat
You wanna throw away your mistake,
another promise you can forsake.
So you say that I’m fucked up
and I should be locked up.
I’m not a lunatic
and I’m not fucked up on drugs.
I’m not a rebel without a cause
and I’m not some fucking thug.
I don’t wanna be the scapegoat.
Stop making me the scapegoat.
I don’t wanna be your scapegoat.
Never gonna be your scapegoat.
You say you want safe streets-
Safe for you but not for me.
Who will protect me from the police?
Real life’s not like T.V.
I’m not a lunatic
and I’m not fucked up on drugs.
I’m not a rebel without a cause
and I’m not some fucking thug.
I don’t wanna be the scapegoat.
Stop making me the scapegoat.
I don’t wanna be your scapegoat.
Never gonna be your scapegoat.
You blame the problems on someone else
to defend your power and wealth.
You can see I’m sick of this
so you call me dangerous.
I’m not a lunatic
and I’m not fucked up on drugs.
I’m not a rebel without a cause
and I’m not some fucking thug.
I don’t wanna be the scapegoat.
Stop making me the scapegoat.
I don’t wanna be your scapegoat.
Never gonna be your scapegoat.
