1. |
The Feeling
01:44
|
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|
Feeling old
And fire gone cold
Do I have the passion
For one more go?
The conventional social wisdom
States these outlets are the domain of the young
But I cannot just let my voice die as I age out
‘Cos I don’t think that I’m done
Priorities change and some people move on
Pressures of life and career and a family
But where’s the outlet when rage doesn’t die?
Don’t let the process of growing up kill your fire
I may be older
But I’m no colder
Still feel the passion
We may grow older
But I pray we never lose
The joy of our youth
The feeling of being free
|
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2. |
Coming to Terms With
02:42
|
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|
Observer to a mind in torment
See her sinking in lament
Anxiety high, I’m idly by
Powerless in face of it
My synapses screaming
‘Rescue her from danger’
But frozen knowing I cannot fix, change or save her
Recoiling from brokenness pressing up against me
Compulsion to rescue
Snuff out all these feelings
That I push away in me
Flooding back through her pain
Frantic to escape what might drag me down again
What does it say about me when
Her pain is seen through my own fears?
It’s not something that I can control
And I’m coming to terms with the drive to fix her problems
As proxy for my own need to be in control in my own head
My nerves may scream to be in control but
My fight needs to be to let it go
|
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3. |
(Un)Justified
01:59
|
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|
Through Othering, we’re discovering
The means to demonise a foe
Fixate on their violent actions
Our xenophobia grows
Breeding discontent
The presence of ‘them’ in our land
Labelled violent, no shared values
Crush ‘them’ with a heavy hand
Strike first, flex our might
Oblivious to what that means
When we excuse ourselves
For actions that we hate in ‘them’
Violence
Breeds violence
Hypocrites, complicit
Indulging in narratives
Justified in our minds
Cast ourselves on side of right
Just like ‘them’, violent minds
Just like ‘them’ we’ve left behind
All pretense of moral ground
Just like ‘them’ we stumble blind
We shall fall on our own swords
We’re not justified
Violence
To defeat those we deem violent
|
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4. |
Vow
03:19
|
|||
|
Today every woman looked so exquisite
Every smile so damn perfect
So far removed from the night before
When our words hit like battering rams
On the door of our connection
Laying siege to our dedication
And I begged you to get some help
You took it as an accusation
You took it as an accusation
I’m wishing I had other options
Everybody else seems so drama-free
Got me wondering what could have been
Wanting more than managing your problems
Noticing the beauty in other women
Imagining the life I could have with them
A thought I swore I’d never be contemplating
The intersection of exhaustion
And what a future with you might be holding
Am I willing to live with your trauma?
Or is getting out the better option?
Is getting out the better option?
When what we have is built on constance
Would I melt into the arms of another woman?
When I’ve vowed to be your devoted
Could I be the man I want to be
If I abandon you in your need?
I could not respect myself
I could not respect myself
If I abandon you just because
Life gets hard, life gets hard
I will not abandon you
The measure of this man is proven
In honouring the vow that he has made
|
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5. |
Fragility
02:50
|
|||
|
You’re so insecure
Masculine projection your main ploy
Under that brawny exterior
Just another little boy
Strong, independent women getting under your skin
They want nothing from you
Is that doubt sinking in?
Your definition of masculinity
Has your emotional state
Perpetual fragility
Emotionally stunted
Just taught to repress
Leaving you without words
Without options
So many men were never taught emotional literacy
Now you blame them when they find you lacking in compassion
Hide behind your pride and start to blanket hate on women
Your deficiencies weigh on your shoulders
Bare them like the man you say that you are
Your deficiencies weigh on your shoulders
Women aren’t a heel to justify your behaviour
|
||||
6. |
Baring Scars
02:19
|
|||
|
Popping at a pill that’s supposed
To take the pain away
Keep demons at bay
Scars on wrists from
Knives running fissures
Separate tissues
Begging to feel something
Nobody can comprehend
Much less can they understand
The turmoil inside the mind
This is the fight for our lives
So draw the lines of battle
Define ourselves by the places where we unravel
So much harder to treat the patient
With an illness so evasive
The fight demands all that you have
But it will prove the depth of your strength
Bare those scars
They’re emblems of the fight to stay alive
We’re so much more than our mental war
But it’s part of what makes us who we are
Bare those scars
|
||||
7. |
Imperial Christ
01:46
|
|||
|
Worshiping with shows of force
It should enrage us
Imperial behaviours
Claiming the Prince of Peace
Blesses your callousness
Oppress your neighbours
Offshore asylum detention centres
Hell on earth, open-ended sentence
In what world would Jesus condone this in his name?
Child separation as disincentive
Pack them in cages and still claim you’re pious
When the bayonet on that gun
Is the shape of a cross
Yeah we got a problem
Wearing crosses as your war machine
Rolls over the vulnerable
Destroying the Kingdom
That you think you are advancing
|
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8. |
Blessed Are...
03:16
|
|||
|
Blessed are the meek
For they shall inherit
Blessed are the weak
For theirs is the kingdom
The sat upon, spat upon, ratted on
Wandering the back-streets
Of life, forlorn
They are those we turned our backs on
We have tended
Our own garden
Much too long
At their expense
Dismayed that the pastors
Are obsessed with punishment
And purity culture
And boasting in personal salvation
We have tended
Our own garden
Much too long
At their expense
Oh Lord
Why have we forsaken
Them (You)
A Gospel tied to moral performance
Turns redemption into control
The poor are treated as a project
Not as heirs
I hope you’re proud
|
||||
9. |
||||
|
Fixated by feeling that
The world has changed
Everything so strange
These kids are challenging
The axioms you were taught in infancy
All around you people look nothing like
They did when you were young and it frightens you
I would have hoped that you would endeavour
To live out the Lord’s calling to love your neighbour
But lately
All I’m
Seeing
Is distrust
Disgust
And demonisation
Of refugees
Foreigners
Retreating into
Xenophobia
Shake me
Strike me
If ever I fall into
Fear of the Other
Don’t want to end up like you
|
||||
10. |
Devouring Locust
03:22
|
|||
|
The routine of rage like a constant haze
Endless opposition to all and no-one
If a better world were possible
Would you be on board
Or just find another
Place for anger going nowhere
Life defined by having something
To hate again
Self indulgent
Got a need to scream for something more
Believe that change is possible
Show as much joy in what I hope for
As dissatisfaction in the current
state of the world and its problems
Life defined by having something
I’m hoping in
A reason to sing
Start looking further forward than your next outrage
Feeding only on hate will never sustain
What have you been feeding on?
A steady diet of only things you hate
And nothing that could bring you joy
Would you even recognise a better world?
Would you just reject it out of principle?
Would you know a better world?
Blinded by your diet of hate
|
||||
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