This is the best song I have ever read. It makes me cringe every time because I know it is so true. I cringe because I never had the confidence to write this song, and because it is true and accepting that it's true means that I have to do something about it.

It is like this. You have a long held suspicsion which you deny because it is easier to live life while denying it. Then one day someone proves to you that it is unequivicably true. There can be no doubt. You can honestly no longer defend it. Now you can't go around pretending to be ignorant of the fact. You can now attempt to do something about it which will cause you trouble and undoubtably not suceed, or you can hate yourself forever.

It reminds me of two other things. An article I read somewhere on the internet titled "You Are Not a Threat", and the books "Ishmael" and "Story of B" which will forever fuck up my ability to believe in even a basic foundation of culture. I can't even talk to people in my classes because of these books. Thanks a whole fucking load guys.

I lost the confidence to write a song, so I found three simple chords and held them together with my weak voice on an out of tune guitar my father gave to me. I made Elvis turn in his grave, and Les Paul kissed my dirty caloused fingers. May the likes of this song never make one fucking dollar, leave it for a demo tape to be played until it's broken, and remembered only for what it was...that we gave them hell.

To my friends and enemies who could have been anything, titans and heroes who found survival in cause and effect...behind windows, behind counters striving just to be people, with bitter ideals of justice. Do we only need to keep working because it pays rent? Sleeping under plastic stars glued to a ceiling, muscles burning alcohol and nicotine every morning...but we gave them hell.

There's a height beyond skyscrapers, there's a distance beyond the freeway. more than pictures in a magazine, more than the tragedy in a rock and roll song. More than actions you know it's safe to make. More than money could ever buy. Are we working to live and die in American cites? Living to work and die in American cities, and dying for what we worked.