@migu music@

The Burning City Smoking - Kevin Devine

Forty million refugees with no place on this earth to call their home

One for every aimless graduate with nothing else

To show for it but loans

And those of us who make a mark using someone else's blood

Our western stain won't wash away won't vanish in the flood

It's just deeper with each hurricane and tidal wave and war

Oh whoa oh woh

We want everything we see and once it's gone we just want more

Atlas had those shoulders we've got

Ambien and Jamesons and blow

To bind us in a bubble

Keep the newsprint nightmare distant and remote

But when we wake in guillotines and pitch our screaming fits

When the Governor strikes up

The band and gags our parted lips

When the worst case shows up dressed

And dazzling ready for the ball

Oh whoa oh woh

Boy that bubble's bound to burst

And what a tragic way to fall

The tabloids tell us hate the rat

Who strikes those subways closed and puts you out

Forget those 50-hour tunnel weeks

Inhaling steel dust poison through his mouth

Well if he don't deserve a pension that makes his family feel secure

If we're now so disconnected it's our relfections we ignore

And if our constant choice is skimming past the writing on the wall

Oh whoa oh woh

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 pretend the principals are nothing

More than actors running lines

And I stumble through a movie set where torture victims laugh

At abandoned journalist who juggled knives and daggered glass

While they entertain the marble Heads of State and CEO's

Oh whoa oh woh

I stagger past anarchist extras through saloon doors painted gold

So I turn and I see Uncle Sam

Walks out of wardrobe ready for the shoot

So I walk right up and talk to him

I tell him that I'm scared and I'm confused

While they test the cameras out

And get the lighting right while catering fills coffee cups

And carves up apple pie

And while the stylists trim his beard and straighten those lapels

Oh whoa oh woh

I ask was it pies that made him drive us straight to hell

And as my daydream ends he stands there

Shamed and a shocked shattered shell

But there's never any answer for my starving tongue to tell

Oh whoa oh woh oh oh

Cause the director's shouting action

And from off set it's just as well