1. |
A Cruel Fucking Year
04:16
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There's a fresh coat of snow on the White House lawn
and a cruel fucking year's seen its final dawn.
Inside, wealthy men in dull gray suits
drink California wine from Champagne flutes
and they smile, cuz they made it.
"Let's have another round!"
Back in Brooklyn, my friend's in a cheerless mood.
Forty hours a week and he's stealing food.
He's off his meds again; he can't afford 'em.
Takes another swig to kill the boredom.
It's whiskey and chill again.
"Let's drown the sirens out."
Everything's alright, for me.
I've got a job and home and insurance, and I'm stupid lucky.
But only part of me believes
that my friends, or New York, or that anyone else
sees February.
We can't buy the truth, it's packaged in lies.
We were led to the ladder, but our hands were tied.
When the market decides who lives and who dies,
it's a cruel fucking year.
Shots are fired in crowds and the levees spill.
If the world doesn't kill us, the planet will.
An island's desperate cries are met with silence,
men we're meant to trust default to violence,
and this degradation looks like it's here to stay.
But everything's alright for me.
Hell, I never knew how to struggle 'til I looked at the others 'round me.
But I can't guarantee
that my friends, or New York, or that anyone else
sees February
We can't buy the truth, it's packaged in lies.
We were led to the ladder, but our hands were tied.
When the market decides who lives and who dies,
it's a cruel fucking year.
It's a new humiliation at the start of each day,
it's the sick realization it was always this way.
Now we all hate each other, got nothin' to say.
It's been a cruel fucking year.
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2. |
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Daddy says that we're leaving home.
I ask "Which one?" and he says "All of them,
"so pack your things 'cuz we're never coming back."
I ask him, "Dad, how much should I take?"
and he just laughs. He says "We'll have a lot of space,"
so I grab my drones and a light caviar snack.
Hope we get there fast.
We're gonna live on the moon,
where we'll see the Earth from our skies every day
and watch it turn gray.
We're gonna live on the moon,
so when the bill comes due then we won't have to pay
'cuz we'll be too far away.
We arrive at our brand new home
and it's a mile-wide geodesic dome
and the air is cleaner than I've ever known.
I can jump like the late LeBron
and I can run much better 'cuz my asthma's gone.
Everybody here just gets along.
And I remember that old song.
We're gonna live on the moon,
and we'll see the Earth from our skies every day
and watch it turn gray.
We're gonna live on the moon,
so when the bill comes due then we won't have to pay
'cuz we'll be too far away.
And I stare up through the glass
at the shrinking landmass
and I thank my lucky stars,
my billion lucky stars,
that I'm up here.
On the screen, it's my dad's old bud.
They chase him down, take off his mask, and he coughs up blood,
and they beat his retching body to a corpse.
My mama cries "What a waste of life!
"And what's gonna become of his delightful wife?"
But my dad just shakes his head and laughs and snorts:
"Bud came up a million short."
Good thing we live on the moon,
where we just close our eyes and turn off the display
and then return to our play.
We're living free on the moon,
where our servants come and take our plates away.
What's all this blood on my tray?
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3. |
Ever/More
03:56
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WE ARE MORE (Dylan Roth)
I read somewhere that we're selfish
'cuz we like to take pictures and say how we feel.
While they chase after money and lie cheat and steal
we'll be telling each other we're beautiful.
The balls on these hypocrites
who killed their great grandkids before they were born.
Will they still call us "snowflakes" when all the real snowflakes are gone?
'Cuz we're young and we're told
that the years are gonna tame us.
We'll grow colder by the day,
and we'll tell ourselves we're blameless.
But we're not who came before.
Oh, God, I just have to believe it,
that we're more. We are more.
We are more.
And I remember being in love,
the kind of hope that makes your dreams last.
EVER AGAIN by Jay Ackley
‘Cause we’re young and we’re broke and our lives are all jokes
And there’s nobody trying to save us
And we’ve seen better days, but we’re stuck in our ways
‘cause we’ve convinced ourselves that it’s painless
And I’ve been told that I’ll grow old,
but somehow I still don’t believe it
We’ve been up we’ve been down, we’ve been lost we’ve been found
but we’ve managed somehow to break even
And I remember growing up slow,
when the teachers still taught us things we didn’t know
And I remember growing up fast
Those days of our youth somehow slipped to the past
I remember the sex, I remember the drugs
I remember being made to feel shame.
I remember that night when she kissed me goodbye
I remember not feeling the same
Ever again
and all the nights that we danced and we sang
and we dreamt of the future and laughed about fame
Well it’s strange now to think, with our lives on the brink
that we’ll never feel that way again
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4. |
The Ladder
03:25
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She woke up in a sweat-soaked panic
and it wasn't from a dream—
It was a string of soft numbers, the blue and the red,
burned in her head last night off the TV screen.
She caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror
and it wasn't who she'd been.
Some deeper level of stupid, some newfound circle of hell,
some wicked spell started dragging her in.
What have you done?
You cut the bottom rungs off of the ladder.
Now no one's getting out of here alive.
She took a ride on a silent subway,
no one looked her in the eyes.
Was like this city of color had gone gray overnight,
and all the light was snuffed out by the sick surprise.
She walked to work with her head on a swivel
'cuz she don't know who to trust.
How many cordial neighbors, how many casual friends,
how many men think she's lesser than them?
What have you done?
You pinned your hands to the top of the ladder
so if you go down then we'd all go down too.
Well now the morning has come.
We're cutting right to the heart of the matter:
We'd rather burn this fucker down than be like you.
What does she see when she looks at me?
I'm walking down the street in the skin of the enemy.
This safety pin don't make nobody feel safer but me.
Oh, well what have we done?
No, no, we can't blame it all on our fathers.
That selfish blood's still pumping through our hearts.
But if they think that they've won
we'll build their bones into rungs of the ladder,
and turn it on its side and walk across.
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Dylan Roth's Deadshirt Records Queens, New York
Dylan Roth and his friends make rock music.
Check out thehellyeahbabies.com for Dylan’s main ongoing musical project.
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