the brown and orange sky holds its breath
as the sun retreats to the distant horizon,
and our hearts palpitate anxiously as we soon will lay supine,
and wait for sleep to overcome us

and from somewhere in our black,
subconscious minds when we're asleep,
comes a haunting swelling mass of voices,
resonating, its screams of forgotten victims and the cries of innocence,
and the desperate plea for recognition and recompense

tiny voices, echoes of our heritage,
our long and sallow faces turn the other way,
tiny voices, harbored deep within
as we outwardly deny that they have something to say,
and if we don't confront them they will never go away

the billions of tiny pinhole embers fade into a morning sky
filled with poignant morose wonder,
waking a bear a cosmetic peace that verifies the turmoil
which we carry deep inside

Not long ago, and yet the image is so vague
I hesitate to label it a memory
There was a show of local color and I failed to stray
Cause I had nothing to offer but insufficiency

And you know that it’s a bitch
When you learn to scratch that itch
A blatant fallibility
Sooner to some, but eventually
All gets pointed in the same direction
While the human masses and their vain conceptions
Obliterate each other with impunity
And you wonder, “what’s in this for me?”

To another abyss
To no avail
The search is bound to fail
To another abyss
To no avail
So long ago I set sail
And it chills me to the bone
That I’m so far away from home
To another abyss

So what should I do now? What should I celebrate?
Given finite means and a penchant to depreciate
How can I still avow and depend upon a state
That cares nothing for my happiness, welfare, or fate?

And I know I can’t explain
The commotion in my brain
Like a terrifying reality
Deconstructed but inadequately
All gets pointed in the same direction
While the human masses and their vain conceptions
Obliterate each other with impunity
And release the weight of history

<chorus>

So long ago, so long ago…oh, I set sail
And I’m struggling on the way
And I’m waiting for the day (to another abyss)
And I’m looking for the way back home (to another abyss)
So far away (to another abyss)
So far away (to another abyss)
(to another abyss) So far away
(to another abyss)

shut your eyes,
see the future's distant shore
march ahead
more enlightened than before
and there's sure to be bumps
and distractions
but I know we'll get through
there will be me, there will be you
there will be a way
unresolved repercussions from your life
fortified with the vitriol of strife
and you can be grid locked by predictions,
but you're wise grab the prize
then revise, realize
there will be a way
hey... ho
and I don't know where we are going
but we're here on this ride
and we'll stand side by side
all along the way
follow me to the future's distant shore
vagary needn't haunt us anymore
and now it's time to set the agenda,
learn the past, make it last
share the wealth, hold your fire,
conserve life, make it right
kill the hate, negotiate
there will be a way
there will be a way
there will be a way

Part One
from the bird and the deer who live on the same
to the condominiums that litter the plain
it took time... time and disregard
from the green and the trees that shot high in the air
to the high-business market-men who take all that's there
it took time... time and disregard

Part Two
one more acre, another tree
"it's all untamed, of course it's free"
one more acre, it seems no one cares
"another great chance to put a building there"

Part Three
I used to roam, wherever I would
I'd see my friends and I'd eat what I could
we did live together in our borderless state
survival our instinct, nature our fate
today I see borders and my friends disappear
man chooses my fate thus I live in fear
tomorrow the trucks come
I've nowhere to run
my home is destroyed so they can have fun.

Part Four
from the wild natural wonderland from which we all came
to the cement and metal that lost all the game
it took time... time and disregard............

despite that he saw blatant similarity
he struggled to find a distinctive moiety
all he found was vulgar superficiality
but he focused it to sharpness
and shared it with the others
it signified his anger and misery

them and us
lobbying determined through a mire of disbelievers
them and us
dire perpetuation and incongruous insistence
that there really is a difference
between them and us

hate is a simple manifestation
of the deep-seated self-directed frustration
all it does is promote fear and constrenation
it's the inability
to justify the enemy
and it fills us all with trepidation

them and us
bending the significance to match a whimsied fable
them and us
tumult for the ignorant and purpose for the violence
a confused loose alliance forming
them and us

I heard him say
we can take them all
(but he didn't know who they were,
and he didn't know who we were.
and there wasn't any reason or
motive, or value, to his story,
just allegory, imitation glory,
and a desperate feeble search for a friend)

Since the start of the 17th century
There's been the scent of unseasoned wood burning in the air
And the conquest of nature meant nothing at all
While we betray exception we take all that is there
Motives are transcluent in the reflection of shame
The actions ghostly remnants of our ancestral ways

And unwittingly, you just take your place in this parade
The voracious march of godliness makes us all the same anyway
Since the dawn of our human family
There's been concentrated sepsis blowing in the breeze
And we turned on each other with ferocity

Oh yeah!
A study of history reveals an unflagging appeal to mystery
You talk about abstraction at the top of the list
But you might as well get pissed, cause in me the essence does not exist, no-oh-oh

Yeah-yeah!

You’re so shallow
How can your romance hope to be the veil of an ersatz human nature
That can pacify but never slept well when there’s the pretension of living a lie

Take me as I am, judge me for my crimes
I can say I’ll behave freely all the time
You can predict what I’ll say, it’s in my DNA
But soon I’ll be a catalogue number anyway
So say a little prayer
Convince yourself that someone cares
All I am is what you see
There is nothing more than the surface of me [x2]
you know

Oh yeah!

Apologies to Skinner, but I do believe that I feel like I’m a winner
Having just discovered a long solved modal secret, of how I always feel
So goddamn downtrodden and desperate

Take me as I am, judge me for my crimes
I can say I’ll behave freely all the time
You can predict what I’ll say, it’s in my DNA
But soon I’ll be a catalogue number anyway
So say a little prayer
Convince yourself that someone cares
All I am is what you see
There is nothing more than the surface of me [x2]

Take me as I am, judge me for my crimes
I can say I’ll behave freely all the time
You can predict what I’ll say, it’s in my DNA
But soon I’ll be a catalogue number anyway
So say a little prayer
Convince yourself that someone cares
All I am is what you see
There is nothing more than the surface of me [x4]
What you see is the surface of me

desolate and without purpose
radiating from so many septic sources
forming the fabric of a wayward people
disappearing as the vestiges of our past

scratched like tartan into virgin soil
a substrate for progress and disarray
a spreading network of broken dreams
searching for a thoroughfare to take us away

just a little tale from the streets of America (say a little prayer)
sparkled promises paved with pathos and hysteria
trenchant, weary native sons
step back
and see the damage done
meander to the horizon (shoot straight to the horizon)
the streets of America

black, tarred concrete
pine for me
lying domant
for you and country
hardened surface
cracked within
catch the sweat
from off the chin

of men and women
senior and child
who look to you
and your sterile miles
and in their stares
is bald dismay
for what you promised
led them astray

hard-cracked, daunting, lifeless veins
false hope corridors to greener pastures is all that remains

Neighbours, nobody loves you like we do.
Neighbors, your government has triumphed in finally making you a public fit
for the 21st century.
Never before has a governing body shown so much concern for the economic
well-being of its subjects.
Today we have insulated you from countless factions who threathens your
financial viability; such as the poor; the idealistic foreigners still
clinging to their childish notions of social welfare; why, you're even kept
uninformed of useless propagandist journalism that reports alleged
violations of human rights (We all know they wouldn't have been punished if
they hadn't been doing something wrong!!). And who better to dispens such
blantently evident factoids but a self-appointed authority like myself?
Acid Rain is a thing of the past... Too many possible causes, too little
signifigance for our modern thinking public, besides industrial
manufacturing is at an all time low anyway, who needs those narrow minded
laborers anyway. Too many mouths to feed, and to many burden on the pay
roll! Who needs 'em? Here in the land of the free-time. Someother ass
back-ward country will give us what we need by exploiting its uneducated
children.

You want prosperity
For yourself, but not for me
Somehow you just can't see
We're in this collectively
You think that freedom is
A drastic severance
From your past relations
Just a quest for new bargains
We're not the same person
We're not the same person (Don't even wanna know)
Wooohhh
Don't need no good advice
Nor shoddy merchandise
I'm the suspect device
Beaten down, unable to strike
We're not the same person
We're not the same person (Don't even wanna know)
Wooohhh
And the sun comes over us again
We lament, we pine, and we rescind