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Darkness at the break of noon |
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Shadows even the silver spoon |
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The handmade blade, the child's balloon |
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Eclipses both the sun and moon |
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To understand you know too soon, there is no sense in trying |
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Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn |
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Suicide remarks are torn |
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From the fool's gold mouthpiece the hollow horn |
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Plays wasted words proves to warn |
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That he not busy being born is busy dying |
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Temptation's page flies out the door |
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You follow, find yourself at war |
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Watch waterfalls of pity roar |
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You feel to moan but unlike before |
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You discover that you'd just be one more person crying |
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So don't fear if you hear |
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A foreign sound to your ear |
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It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing |
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As some warn victory, some downfall |
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Private reasons great or small |
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Can be seen in the eyes of those that call |
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To make all that should be killed to crawl |
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While others say don't hate nothing at all, except hatred |
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Disillusioned words like bullets bark |
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As human gods aim for their mark |
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Made everything from toy guns that spark |
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To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark |
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It's easy to see without looking too far that not much is really sacred |
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Our preachers preach of evil fates |
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Teachers teach that knowledge waits |
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Can lead to hundred-dollar plates |
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Goodness hides behind its gates |
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But even the President of the United States |
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Sometimes must have to stand naked |
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An' all the rules of the road have been lodged |
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It's only people's games that you got to dodge |
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And it's alright, Ma, I can make it |
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Advertising signs that con you |
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Into thinking you're the one |
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That can do what's never been done |
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That can win what's never been won |
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Meantime life outside goes on all around you |
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You lose yourself, you reappear |
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You suddenly find you got nothing to fear |
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Alone you stand with nobody near |
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When a trembling distant voice, unclear |
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Startles your sleeping ears to hear |
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That somebody thinks they really found you |
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A question in your nerves is lit |
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Yet you know there is no answer fit |
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To satisfy insure you not to quit |
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To keep it in your mind and not forget |
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That it is not he or she or them or it that you belong to |
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Although the masters make the rules |
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For the wise men and the fools |
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I got nothing, Ma, to live up to |
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For them that must obey authority |
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That they do not respect in any degree |
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Who despise their jobs, their destinies |
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Speak jealously of them that are free |
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Do what they do just to be |
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Nothing more than something they invest in |
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While some on principles baptized |
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To strict party platform ties |
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Social clubs in drag disguise |
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Outsiders they can freely criticize |
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Tell nothing except who to idolize and say, "God bless him" |
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While one who sings with his tongue on fire |
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Gargles in the rat race choir |
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Bent out of shape from society's pliers |
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Cares not to come up any higher |
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But rather get you down in the hole that he's in |
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But I mean no harm nor put fault |
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On anyone that lives in a vault |
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But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him |
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Old lady judges watch people in pairs |
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Limited in sex, they dare |
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To push fake morals, insult and stare |
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While money doesn't talk, it swears |
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Obscenity, who really cares propaganda, all is phony |
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While them that defend what they cannot see |
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With a killer's pride, security |
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It blows the minds most bitterly |
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For them that think death's honesty |
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Won't fall upon them naturally |
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Life sometimes must get lonely |
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My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards |
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False goals, I scuff at pettiness which plays so rough |
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Walk upside-down inside handcuffs |
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Kick my legs to crash it off |
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Say, "Okay, I have had enough, what else can you show me?" |
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And if my thought dreams could be seen |
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They'd probably put my head in a guillotine |
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But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only |
