Songtext The burning city smoking Kevin Devine

The burning city smoking

Forty million refugees with no place on this earth to call there home,
One for every aimless graduate with nothing else to show for it but loans,
And those of us who make our mark use someone else's blood,
Our western stain won't wash away, it won't vanish in the flood,
It seeps deeper through each hurricane and tidal wave and war,
Oh woah oh oh
We want everything we see and once it's gone we just want more.

Atlas had those shoulders, we've got Ambien and Jameson's and blow,
To bind us in a bubble and keep the newsprint nightmare distant and remote,
But when we wake in gulitines and pitch our screaming fits,
When the govenor strikes up the band and gags our parted lips,
When the worst case shows up dressed and dazzling, ready for the ball,
Oh woah oh oh
But that bubbles bound to burst and what a tragic way to fall.

The tabloids tell us hate,
The rat who strikes those subways closed and put's you out,
Forget those fifty hour tunnel weeks,
Inhaling steel dust poison through his mouth,
Well if he don't deserve a pension it makes his family feel secure,
If we're now so dissconected it's our reflections we ignore,
And if our constant choice is skimming past the writing on the wall,
Oh woah oh oh,
Then I'm sad to say we're lost and I'm embarrassed for us all.

So most days I can't put to rest the burning city smoking in my mind,
And I play and pretend the principles are nothin' more than actors runnin' lines,
And I stumble through a movie set where tourtered victims laugh,
And embedded journalists who juggle knives and daggered glass,
While they entertain a mob of heads of state and CEO's,
Oh woah oh oh,
I stagger past anarchist extras through saloon doors painted gold.

So I turn and I see Uncle Sam outside a wardroube ready for a shoot,
So I walk right up and talk to him, I tell him that I'm scared and I'm confused,
And while they test the cameras out and get the lighting right,
While the catering fills coffee cups and carves up apple pie,
And while the stylists trim his beard and straighten those clothes,
Oh woah oh oh
I ask his empires what made him drive us straight to hell,
And as my daydream ends, he stands ashamed, a shocked and shattered shell,
But there's never any answer for my starving tongue to tell,
Woah oh oh oh
'Cause the director shouted action, and from offset its just as well.