Blacktop pavement cover me Like a chemical reaction or a steam roller Spreading randomly There's a distant pause and low frequency It tickles my ear, rumbles under my feet And it shakes the leaves off of every tree violently What pretension! Everlasting peace Everything must cease Institution on the hill Like a beacon in the mind of an ancestor To ignite a people's will There's a shadowed stain on the west facade It has spread like decay to enshroud the fraud And the descendants find oh so odd, oh so odd What pretension! Everlasting peace Everything must cease Grave memorial hewn white stone Like the comforting caress of a mother Or a friend you've always known It evokes such pain and significance What was once, since reduced to remembrance And the generations passed without recompense, oh What pretension! Everlasting peace Everything must cease What pretension! Everlasting peace Everything must