The first time I saw a cop hit a kid, I swore to myself I'd never sleep again,
But late that night I crept to my room, and turned out the lights.
The first time I saw my dad cry was the day I said to myself that:
"This world we live in's not ok, and it's not getting better, no."
The first time that I realized my friends could die, that I couldn't rely on no one but I,
I knew then there, the chill of October air, that no one would dare if I got left behind...
Then when I was 15, George Bush got elected President (kind-of,sort-of), I had to ask myself, "Are we moving backwards?
Are we devolving? Did this world stop revolving?" This agression, depression, regression's killing me!
The was the day you knew that no one's coming back for you.
You eat cows, and you hunt stags, and you fry crooks, and you bash fags,
And you leave out poison for poor little mice, you drop giant bombs and you never think twice.
You wear shoes made by slaves because you like the price. Hey, who cares about them? We'll just throw them some rice.
Let's overfish 'til we've wiped out the Seas and lets overconsume 'til it's a thousand degrees!
We don't care. Why? 'Cause we don't have to! You've got a problem? We'll kick your ass too!
We kill people in foreign lands, from Nicaragua to Afghanistan and,
They kill us back, this cycle is vicious! Our excuses grow more malicious; ficticious!
'Cause, oh, we're so rich, and oh, we're so safe, and oh, it's so easy when you don't see the faces!
That was the day you knew there was no one coming back for you.
2006 before his wedding night the cops shot a black guy in the dead of the night.
51 times, 10 blocks from my home. He had no gun, I guess he had the wrong tone.
But where you pissed off? NO! Did you riot? Of course not! The cops keep you safe when your quiet!
This self-preservation, sense of complacency, "I'll start to get angry when their shooting at me!"
It's not an American thing, it's not the West, every motherfucker on this Earth thinks he's the goddamn best!
It's just a human thing, a people problem. We love to create them we just suck at solving them!
We made this mess lets take pride in it, lie in it! We made our bed, won't you just let us die in it!?
We close our eyes so we can choose not see, "It must not be important if it's not about me!"
That was the day you knew there was no one coming back for you.
That was the day it hit you: no one would get you.
That living in silence, frightened compliance, would never fulfill you like outright defiance.
That standing alone still felt better than kneeling, if sometimes my feet hurt, at least I was feeling.
No social constructions or comforting lies, no more shiny gadgets to blind my eyes!
If fighting meant dying you knew that you would, if no one would listen you'd do what you could,
'Cause you do it for you and not nobody else, yeah, you do what you can and sometimes it helps.
And sometimes it won't, but you hang onto the hope that while you cant save the world, you can throw it a rope.