1. |
Thanks, Bastards!
03:22
|
|||
Thank you, Mr. Officer Great
For all the things you've said to me
For all the good that you have ever done
Without you, what would I be?
You're the gas upon my flames
My love and rage all rolled up into one
For every time your gun goes off
A new rebel is born
So when there's 41 bullets
It's 41,000 thorns in your side
We'll take a ride down to Precinct 29
And we'll sing and dance and break the code of silence
Thank you Governor, thank you Governor
To the Mayor and the commissioner
Your monster is alive now
She's taking to the streets
Crashing through your operahouse
And tearing out the seats
For every time you've signed your name
Someone out there dies
Found a wallet, not a gun
And mother's wiping tears from her eyes
We despise your hollow truths and honest lies
Now you can't sing the monster into slumber
Thanks, bastards!
You made me what I am
Thanks, bastards!
I took the goods and ran
Homeland security vs. civil liberty
I'm studying in the shadows of our state
I've seen the bones they try to hide
Cutthroat living's other side
The flood of U.S. bathwater displaced
The funeral march of all the victims
Of your power war
Rob the rights and steal the nights
And rebels shall be born
Forevermore
You're the storm
We shall play after it pours
And joy is sure to come after your silence
|
||||
2. |
Tell Me A Story
03:40
|
|||
Tell me a story
Settle the cards
Give me a cause for the foreign wars
Wrap me up in our flag
And let the bombs fall where they may
Tell me a tale
Make the puzzle whole
Give it to the pilgrim without a soul
Sell it to the miner who can't afford his coal
And may the history factory never close
Never close, never close
You can build an army of this rabble yet
You can make a nation from the ashes of the dead
Tell them a story
God, blood, and glory
Brew up an enemy
"They're coming to steal your bread."
And let the bombs fall where they may
On faces I don't see with names I cannot say
For I trust the storyteller with my vote
I, pilgrim, was sold a golden soul
Sold a soul, sold his soul
The first thing I remember
Waking up and seeing you there
Comfort like a fire
Like an answer to a prayer
Like a beacon in the blackness
Solace from the racket
Take your shears to the briars
Kill the chaos, make it clear
Tell me why the buildings fall and everybody dies
I have so many questions
Just tell me where to sign
And I'll take up arms and lock all the doors
And tell them a story about the good guys
Of the war, of the war
Tell me a story
To help me slip away
I drank up an enemy
So let the bombs rain from our parade
And fall where they may
|
||||
3. |
Gimme Coffee, Or Death
03:27
|
|||
It could have been just like any other day
If not for the drug raids
They seemed so normal as they were cuffed and hauled away
Who could have thought? We should have known
Such a nice family, but it's all a show
It could have been just like any other day
If not for the blood in the rain
It could have been just your everyday commute
And then I heard the sirens and I flipped on the news
"Disobedient civilians have all lanes dammed,
Arrests are being made, wrists are being slapped."
So I cranked down the window as I rolled past
"Get a boss! Take a bath!"
That's what the others shouted, but I blared the horn
With my fist in the air and my gas to the floor
Give me death or give me rain
I feel so numb, better give me pain
Bomb threats and hurricanes
Or a new berry flavor from the coffee tray
It could have been just your forgotten school day
If not for the drills and the bells that saved
The fire started someplace cool and safe
Who could have thought?
We should have known
"Thousands dead," the leaders spoke
I pulled at their cuffs while they were at each others' throats
Does this mean I get to go home?
Give me death or give me rain
I feel so numb, better give me pain
Bomb threats and hurricanes
Or a new berry flavor from the coffee tray
Liberty is too much strain
It could have been just like any other day
If not for the blood in the rain
|
||||
4. |
||||
Children play with matches, start a fire
Children play with matches, start a fire
Don't ever do what you're told
The old are just old
Children play with matches, start a fire
Children play with fire, tend a blaze
Children play with fire, tend a blaze
You know where he keeps his drinks
And lots of poisons under the sink
Children play with fire, tend a blaze
Well the world is dry and brittle and dead
It'll go up in a flash
If we mix it all together, oh what a colorful blast
Only shout when spoken to
Curse your way through church and school
And mess around with father's power tools
(He'll never use)
Children play beyond the "Keep Out" signs
Children play beyond the "Keep Out" signs
And if the owners send you home
It's bottles, rocks, and stones
Children play beyond the "Keep Out" signs
Children lead us to the lake of fire
Children lead us to the lake of fire
And as we drive down into the flames
Maybe I'll let you hold the reigns
Children lead us to the lake of fire
Children play with matches, start a fire
Children play with matches, start a fire
Just a little gasoline
And watch the people scream
Oh, children play with matches
Start a fire
|
||||
5. |
Save A City...
04:27
|
|||
Beware, the tide's a'rising
In the city of brotherly love
The blood-red lights were a'flashing
As the cellars rose up in a flood
And as they dragged you from the depths of mud
They beat you while you were down
Then they tossed you in jail for a hundred years
Save a city, burn it down
And that's what they said as they tore your homes to the ground
And when I was seven
In suburban heaven
The teachers and elders and police
They covered my ears so I wouldn't hear
The gunshots soar through those city streets
And if anyone questioned the liberty bomb
Or why the timers were even wound
A scolding, they'd earn
And so, we soon learned
To save a city, you burn it down
And that's what they said as they burned their homes to the ground
So many people and so many lives
So many keep silent so they can survive
Respect slaughtering cops and the politicians they laud
Or the gavels with crush down your home
And you'll be expected to applaud
So the crime was a trip to the market
The sentence, a lifetime of hurt
As she saw through tears, her home of thirty years
Reduced to rubble and dirt
And she cursed those who would approach her
And hold papers up to her face
And say, "You should feel blessed you live in the U.S.
And not some other hellish place."
So take heed if you live in the city
In a part where the tourists won't tread
And beware if you maintain resistance
And choose not to be one of the led
And if you're out in suburban gardens
Don't let them plant lies deep in your head
Cause you too could come home to no home
Or to find your family dead
Cause they got this dream of a city
Where no community unity can be found
So stand up to save your neighborhood
Fuck the city, burn it down
|
||||
6. |
Gratitude And Thanks
03:52
|
|||
I asked a student of higher schooling
He said he didn't care
When I asked about the sixties
They simply said "long hair"
Saw a child getting programmed
Getting programmed while she waits
And I heard a raving elder
Cursing twenty years too late
"Oh, how the bastards screwed me,
Son, life's too short to wait."
And then the students of higher schooling
Hid more pills inside his plate
So, I'd like to send gratitude and thanks
To those who had the courage to defy the mighty ranks
Send it to the students who waved the banners
Who held flowers up to the tanks
And to the ones who are still fighting
Yes, all my gratitude and all my thanks
So as you sit, baked and hammered
So grateful to be dead
Saying, "Freedom's here to chilll out,
So sit and rest your head."
Think of those who fought for your right
The path you walk, they paved
And those who fought for their right
To carry into today
When it was they who fed the hungry
Spun the Pentagon for peace
While the army rounded strangers up
Made them instant police
They who made a Union
Dodged the draft and filled the jails
And spread a message of unity
Across the nation's rails
And said, "We're destroying the house that man built"
Kicking down the doors and pulling nails
And you've the nerve to tell me
That everyone has failed
No, you should send your gratitude and thanks
To those who had the courage to defy the mighty ranks
Send it to the students who waved the banners
Who held flowers up to the tanks
And to the ones who are still fighting
Yes all my gratitude
Yes all my thanks
I'd like to send out a head, help, heart, and hand
To those who had the courage
To reach and rise and span
Send it to the lovers and the fighters
To those who stood up and still stand
Those who unchained their wrists
And clenched their fists
Both here and in faraway lands
|
||||
7. |
Solidarity Interlude
00:15
|
|||
8. |
Love And Rage
03:27
|
|||
Love, love and rage
Soon be the day
They sang as they swayed in the pews
Sang with love
Love and rage
Soon be the day
As they joined up to pray
I think of the power of song
And the history it brings along
And I can almost see sights
Those hot southern nights
Through blood, rain, tears, or shine
They'd unite and fight
With love
Love and rage
I'm hearing some old singer sing
A song that our taletellers bring
It has been sung through cracked jaws, swollen tongues
In the land of the free
Where they say freedom rings
With love
Love and rage
So now that I see where I am
I see race still determines the blessed from the damned
And the greatest of all historical shams
Is believing you cannot do something you can
|
||||
9. |
All Our Comrades
02:01
|
|||
All across every land
Every soul, every hand
From the clerk to the crook
From the pawn to the rook
Trace the path, crop to root
Scrape the mud from my boot
And I found that somehow
All are comrades
With this beat of my drum
With this shot of my gun
From my mouth, from my mind
From my heart, out of binds
Every act, a revolt
From your dream, I awoke
Rubbed me eyes just to find
All are comrades
Every soul, every hand
All are comrades
Every heart, every land
All our comrades
|
||||
10. |
||||
Well I used to worship whiskey
Now I only drink the Lord
And I take my coffee cream and seven sugars
Before we meet, we stand out on the sidewalk as it pours
Swapping one addiction for another
Coffee, God, and cigarettes are all that I need
It's all that I need just to break this routine
Coffee, God, and cigarettes are all that you need
It's all that you need just to be as free as me
When I run into my old friends
Still drinking from that cup
I never stay too long, lest I be tempted
I say, "I know you drink the devil's brew.
You know, it's just a crutch"
No longer must you live your lives dependent
You need coffee, God, and cigarettes
Are all that you need
It's all that you need just to break this routine...
Ah, what made me give?
Turn off the road that ends at the cliff?
Took the car out for a spin
Crashed the party, blood run thin
Was it waking up with fifty stitches in my gourd?
Was it dreaming about bourbon in the trauma ward?
Well I knew I was surely gonna end up dead
If I didn't embrace coffee, God, and cigarettes
|
||||
11. |
||||
Goodnight, my dear
Lay aside songs of spite and fear
We lovers are bound
Completing a circle and waltzing around
Your words soothe as fire
Roaring and washing the tinsel from liars
And with every kiss
Solace and bliss will not seem so rare
Our rebel's embrace shall give us a taste
Of truth that is masked by a sly poker face
A spirit is well and alive
Live and we will survive
Goodnight, my love
The moon, she shines from above
So forget all the rough
Rejoice and revolt with love when you rise up
Your words soothe as waters
Carving a path through mountains and mortar
To shatter the ground
Walls of silence with sound
With lions and doves
|
||||
12. |
||||
Forgive me, master, if I hear no rhyme in your glory ode
As it was sung in the days of yore
Now we sing our own
You see, I got this dream of turning grey
And having cleared off every plate
And to never look to tomorrow's rogues
To say they went too far today, hey!
To long to awaken every soul
From the calm that quells their storm
From the peace that blinds them through the times
When they should have gone to war
Mother, cry and weep for your bright babe
Father, hold her through the rains
Let the thieves not take her away from me
And turn her to a slave of the trades
The dreams of the morning
Let me not die mourning
May the sirens turn a'shrugging
As we carry on a'laughing
As we carry on a'laughing all the way
May there always be fish in your streams
And water in your wells
And to those that peddle empty heavens
We'll take your silver and run like hell
May there always be rage in your heart
When a master brings the reigns
To detest the thieves of our daughters and sons
And raise from the dead today
The dreams of the morning
Let me not die mourning
May the devils come a'crying
Carry me away a'laughing
As we all go a'laughing to storytelling graves
|
||||
13. |
How Did I Get Out Alive?
03:18
|
|||
Down where the dullards roll
Hard to keep a match lit in this hole
Up where the idiots lead, scattering seeds
Well we all had to stand for the pledge
When bones were thrown, we all fetched
But still we were burning inside
How did I get out alive?
And we read, "Here we are free."
Sang, "This land was made for you and me."
Watched as the president swore, called for war
We all tied yellow ribbons 'round necks
And we all had to stand for the pledge
So smothered by national pride
How did I get out alive?
Back when the idiots ruled
I was a timebomb brought into school
It was there that we learned up from down
Upside down
It was there that we stood for the pledge
Where the living were raised by the dead
Led to slaughter, kept inside their lines
So how did I get out?
By some rebel angel, was I blessed?
Or by some devil's minion, led?
One by one, we all choked on their lies
How did I get out alive?
Hey, but I ain't no saint sent down to save you
If you struggle and fight, you just may get out too
|
||||
14. |
||||
(Music: traditional, words: trad./Erik Petersen)
Let the Midnight Special shine her light on me
Let the Midnight Special shine her ever-loving light on me
Well, you wake up in the morning
And it's the same old thing
Dehumanization by the inhumane
The warden's dog is treated better
And I can't take it no more
Think it's time to turn some pages
No more to study war
If you're gonna run for office
Then it's TV time
Before you mention schools or service
It's hey, let's talk about crime
Say, "I'll sweep 'em into prisons
Whether they're 60 or 10."
Politicians throw a party
When they're put to death
It's a billion-dollar business
It's a booming field
It's a good stock investment
Such blooming yields
Positions in the corporations
Jobs down in old steeltown
Seems like everybody's happy
Except those locked up and locked down
|
Mischief Brew Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Emerging from the undead ashes of PA punk troupe The Orphans, Mischief Brew started with a scratchy demo tape in 2000 and has since spread the good word of anarchy, hilarity, and rebellion across state lines and even the Atlantic Ocean a few times. We've managed to exist for over 13 years in one form or another by kissing nobody's ass and doing everything ourselves, for the most part. No rules! ... more
Streaming and Download help
If you like Mischief Brew, you may also like:
Bandcamp Daily your guide to the world of Bandcamp