The Grey Road

Private jets
Crossing over oceans
Heads of state and kings of silver screens
Quiet halls
Lined with silk and secrets
A handshake on the tarmac means you are clean

Welcome to the boys club
Nothing is illegal here
Welcome to the boys club
Drinking down the atmosphere
Welcome to the boys club
The boys club
The boys club

Yeah
Higher than the law
Higher than the law
Watching us below

Black books
Gold ink
Names they never say aloud in public
Businessmen
Academics
Everyone is feeding on the same plate
No borders
No flags
Only the network
Only the name
Only the shame

Welcome to the boys club
Nothing is illegal here
Welcome to the boys club
Drinking down the atmosphere
Welcome to the boys club
The boys club
The boys club

The boys club
The boys club

They see
They take
They hide
The island is a ghost now
The cameras have all gone dark
Who signed the ledger
Who kept the pace
Who wears the mask tonight

Welcome to the boys club
Nothing is illegal here
Welcome to the boys club
Drinking down the atmosphere
Welcome to the boys club
The boys club
The boys club

Yeah
Higher than the law
Higher than the law
Higher than the law

Shut the door
Keep it tight
Don't look back
Into the night
The boys club
The boys club
It never ends
It never ends

Crinkle, crump, the data drips down the black screen
He says make it all great, make it great again
One man, one voice, stop the cans, silence the gears
We want to know, we want to know
Open the vault, break the seal
No matter the cost, no matter the hurt
We want to know, we want to know

Know it all, know it all
Give it up, give it up
The church of screens loud, the Twittersphere's burning
Thirsting for the secret blood, where does the rabbit run?
Down, down, further down
Show us the dust, show us the bone
Release the heavy files, rip the paper, tell us, tell us now
We want to know, we want to know

Open the vault, break the seal
No matter the cost, no matter the hurt
We want to know, we want to know

The famous faces, the suits and the glass
The gold and the sand, celebrities, politicians, bankers
Watch them crawl, watch them fall, watch them all
Emails, texts, pictures, videos, the pixelated ghosts
The digital skin

Horrific it might be, terrible it might sting
But the truth is a knife, cut the wire, breathe the light
We're already, we're waiting for the end of a lie

We want to know, we want to know
Open the vault, break the seal
No matter the cost, no matter the hurt
We want to know, we want to know
The price is high, the price is us
We want to know everything, everything, everything
Know it all, know it all
The files are open, the lights are on
We know

Hey! Great big soldier
The satellite is watching us
Static on the wire
Ah!

Call it conflict
Call it intervention
Call it war, call it war, call it war
Are we the goodies
Or are we the baddies, the ones you adore?
Shock and awe, shock and awe, the law, the law, the law

I don't like this book we're reading
I don't like this film we're watching
Turn back, flip the page, the hero is a ghost
Frozen in the frame, eliminated
Forgotten, gone
The fallen, the killed, the dead
Just a clever game, just a clever game

Call it conflict
Call it intervention
Call it war, call it war, call it war
Are we the goodies
Or are we the baddies, the ones you adore?
Shock and awe, shock and awe, the law, the law, the law

Rewind the video
Rewind the video
Make it like it was before, before the operation

The engine stalls, quiet dust falls in the marble hall
Concrete cracks across the garden, bridges bend their neck
I see the sky is falling down, tectonic plates are doing the shimmy
How will I save you? I truly do
Because of a bunny print, it holds us tight until we turn and blue
Civilization fades away tonight

But you voted for me, yes you voted for me
And I am worth every cent, every dollar and every penny spent
I'll make it all great again
Oh, so great again, so great again, oh

Follow the leader to the edge, jump with your eyes wide shut
The choir sings out loud again for the bishop and the slut
Spring turns to juice, the losers call me a madman
The fanatics call me the king
I am the messiah, I am the end, I am the gold and the copper

But you voted for me, yes you voted for me
And I am worth every cent, every dollar and every penny spent
I'll make it all great again

Maybe it happens, maybe it breaks
Maybe it dies, just like the stars do
Just like the dirt does, just like I do
Under the weight of your hope

But you voted for me, yes you voted for me
And I am worth every cent, every dollar and every penny spent
I'll make it all great again

Once the lights go out, pull the curtains, the show is done
The vote is in, I am worth it
Goodnight world, goodnight everyone

Selective compassion
About a democracy
Open minds, closed borders
Free markets, fixed outcomes

We sell human rights
With embargoes attached
We preach transparency
From inside the boardroom

Liberty, equality
Luxury brand hypocrisy
All lives matter
But some balances are bigger

Shoot some missiles
Fly some drones
At the baddies, take them out
Lethal aid, sell some weapons
To the goodies, precious allies

We've got Western values, mind your pager
Someone might have put something in it
Sneaky, inventive ingenuity, admirable
Where's daddy? Is he in the database?

The most moral soldiers
Who are the terrorists? Are we the terrorists?
One tap, two taps
It's our pleasure, really
No need to thank us

My hallway expanding out like an elastic rubber band
Thin wooden door popping under heavy weight I cannot see
Pulse and bubbling, green and smoothing in and out like a ribcage
Panting rhythm suffocating underneath the thick layers of glue

An untidy dream
Walking through the mess inside of my head
It is an untidy dream
Checking my reflection in the shattered lead
Looking for a way back home
Looking for a way back home

I am a giant scraping my shoulders on the stucco ceiling board
Suddenly small, treading water in the cracks of the kitchen floor
Dizzy and dazed, disappearing down a rabbit hole made of plaster
Waiting forward, waiting for snow, waiting for dust and an untidy dream

Walking through the mess inside of my head
It is an untidy dream
Checking my reflection in the shattered lead
Looking for a way back home
Looking for a way back home

Maybe the walls watching Maybe the floors breathing Maybe the air screaming I lose my feel like liquid pouring out into the carpeted landscape
The room has a fever, everything is growing, everything is shrinking
Nothing stays still An untidy dream
Walking through the mess inside of my head
It is an untidy dream
Checking my reflection in the shattered lead
Looking for a way back home
Looking for a way back home

Keep the lights on
Keep the lights on
Please keep the lights on
Stuck in the plaster becoming the wallpaper peeling away

Silver hair, silver screen, blank stare
Watching the world cave in, he shrugs
Just a witness to the sin

I am your lunatic leader, your nightmare comes true
To cover up my crimes, I will destroy the blue
I am honing in on you
I am taking you to war, my ego drips from every word I say
No tomorrow, just today
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
Just today, just today

Grease, it runs the industry, it runs the commerce, it runs the finance
Thick black sludge drowning out the chants
No gas, no oil, dry soil

I am your lunatic leader, your nightmare comes true
To cover up my crimes, I will destroy the blue
I am honing in on you
I am taking you to war, my ego drips from every word I say
No tomorrow, just today

Locked doors, barred windows, stifled floors
Global tension sprawls the battleboard
Ignition, ignition, ignition
Gone, the biosphere, simply gone
Faded like a song, dust, I am a person, silence in the dawn

Silver, steel jaw, engines hum and rattle
Cog gears grinding down the bone
No exit, no way back, a map is burning in the head
The war took a momentum of its own
Spinning out of control, spinning out of control
There was no off-ramp, no off-ramp
Just a long road to the end

Hey, hey, where do we go?
Where do we go?
Deep underground, bunkers lined with silk
Safe from the fire they started, they well
They sleep sound while we are breathing in the ash
Leaders hiding, leaders lying, leaders laughing in the dark
Artificial sky painted blue, hiding all the falling stars
The war took a momentum of its own
Spinning out of control, spinning out of control
There was no off-ramp, no off-ramp
Just a long road to the end

Hey, hey, where do we go?
Where do we go?

Selfish nations, selfish allies, selfish empires
Trading lives for a bit of dirt
Trading hearts for a bit of gold
Trading us for nothing at all

Look up, empty, nothing but the gray
The birds have all flown away, who stays, who pays?
Who remembers my name?
Is there anyone left, is there anyone home, is there anyone sane?
The war took a momentum of its own
Spinning out of control, spinning out of control
There was no off-ramp, no off-ramp
Just a long road to the end
One of us, one of us left in the rain
Left in the dust, just us, just us, just us

Just us! Just us!
Fading out into the white
No more signal, no more light
The gears have stopped, the sky is gone
Just us, waiting for the dawn
That never comes, never comes, never comes
Just us, gone, gone, gone!

Gray
There goes
Old central line
Cold and taste on my tongue
Some forgot how to burn
Through the thick smoke
Skin
Empty light
Hollow shadows wait
Waiting for the drop to split the hits
Who gets the work to death
Who gets left to rot
To count
To fade

Monday, Tuesday, Friday days don't mean a thing
Just the calendar of the stomach
Just the silence that the winter brings
The silence that the winter brings

From
Spirit willing
Clothes fall off the bone
No tobacco to blur the sharp edge
No bread to break
Home
Back home
No home
Memory is a burnt out wire
Wiped away like millions of faces
Lost in the gray, lost in the fire
I remember, I forget
I fade

Monday, Tuesday, Friday days don't mean a thing
Just the calendar of the stomach
Just the silence that the winter brings
The silence that the winter brings
Not close
Not close enough
It didn't drop close enough
No it didn't drop close enough
It didn't drop close enough
God why didn't they drop close enough
Not close enough at all
Not close
Not close

It didn't drop close enough
Not close enough at all
At all
At all
(Oh-oh-oh-oh)

Grey Nothing Grows
The road is a wire
Cold wind cuts the throat
Asphalt skin
We crawl
Looking for a rusted tin
Of beans or peaches
Hunger is a heavy stone
Tied to my neck

Don't look back, don't look back
Hold the light
Keep the fire inside your sleep
The bad men are coming, the bad men are coming
Run away, run away
Hide, hide

Ash falling slow
White dust on your eyelashes
I keep the pistol close
Hunger is a heavy stone
Tied to my neck

Don't look back, don't look back
Hold the light
Keep the fire inside your sleep
The bad men are coming, the bad men are coming
Run away, run away
Hide, hide

Ash falling slow
White dust on your eyelashes
I keep the pistol close
Two bullets
One for me
One for the boy
The cellar door is open
The smell of rot
Iron
Oh, blood on the floor
They eat what they find, they find what they eat

Don't look back, don't look back
Hold the light
Keep the fire inside your sleep
The bad men are coming, the bad men are coming
Maybe we reach the coast, maybe the water is blue
Maybe the sun comes out, no more winter, no more salt
No more hunger, I am the man, I am the father, I am the end
Don't look back, don't look back
Hold the light
Keep the fire inside your sleep
The bad men are coming, the bad men are coming
Carry the fire, carry the fire
Sleep now, sleep, just sleep