Bad Religion - Against the Grain Album Lyrics

i've got nothing to say,
i've got nothing to do,
all om my neruons are
functioning smoothly
yet still i'm a cyborg just like you,
i am one big myoma that thinks,
my planet supports only me,
i've got this one big problem: will i live forever?
i've got just a short time you see,
modern man, evelotionary betrayer,
modern man, ecosystem destroyer,
modern man, destroy yourself in shame,
modern man, pathetic example of earth's organic heritage,
when i look back and think,
when i ponder and ask "why?",
i see my ancestors spend with careless abandon,
assuming eternal supply, modern man...,
just a sample of carbon-based wastage,
just a f*cking tragic epic of you and i

i had a friend who kept a candle in his pocket,
he used to touch it when the wind was blowing high,
i guess it mad him feel like he could
buck the system and when it flickered out we laid him down to die,
turn on the light, turn on a million blinding brilliant white
incendiary lights, a beacon in the night, i'll burn relentlessly until
my juice runs dry, i'll construckt a rock of tempered beams and
trusses and equip it with a million tiny suns, i'll install upon the
roof on my compartment and place tinfoil on my floor and on my walls
then i'll turn on the light... and i'll burn lika a roman f*cking
candle, like a chasm in the night, for a miniscule duration, ecstatic
immolation, incorrigible delight

lascivious, it's all that i can think of as i drag my feet, searching
lika a diogenes, dangerous, the adjectives of the decasde and of your
alluring intricacies, i cah see your green-screen mentality and i can
feel the sting of its consequence, and i know i shouldn't but it's too
much to ignore, an emotion i deplore, every time i look at you, i just
want to do it, i can clench my fist right through it but i just want
to get off, rectilinear, this direction we've been heading never
realizing we are on a runaway machine, angular, the momentum that does
turn us one step further on our ladder, one more turn toward the east,
i realize your green-screen mentality and i know it is shared by many
more, i know it is quite impossible but i am damned to find a way to
revolve the other way, every time i scrutinize i just say "screw it",
we're on a ride down a blind conduit and i just want to get off

flying through a dark prismatic tunnel on a carousel, the earth is
turning and you know it very well, your mind is reeling lika ten
helicopters wheeling and you're gonna hit the ceiling lika a mallet on
a bell, hey, blenderhead, they're starting to ask questions, your
transgressions ar a danger flashing sign, challenge conventions and
radiate your splendor and feel those flywheels curn your blenderhead,
tally up the gleaming ventured on a wishing well, each shining trinket
h as a story it can tell, your moments pining like those tales all
intertwining can become the rusted lining of a deep neglected shell,
hey, blenderhead, you ask so many questions, your confusion's a life-
affirming sign, break from tradition and carry on with valor and feel
those flywheels churn you blenderhead

Let's gather round the carcass of the old deflated beast,
we have seen it through the accolades and rested in it's lea,
syntactic is our elegance, incisive our disease,
the swath endogenous of ourselves will be our quandary.

We've nestled in it's hollow and we've suckled at it's breast,
grandiloquent in attitude, impassioned yet inept,
frivolous gavel our design, ludicrous or threat,
excursive expeditions leave us holding less and less...

So what does it mean?
when we tell ourselves it's only for a while we have been deceived
and it's only for a moment that the treasures of our day
make life easier to complicate,
the treasure thrown away...

I'm so tired of all the f*cked up minds
of all the terrorist religions and their bullshit lines,
of all the hand-me-downs from all industrial crimes
and the weeping mothers and those who are led so blind,
from the plastic protests and the hands of time
and the pursuit of mirth and all hating kind!

everybody is talking about the girl who went and killed the delivery
man, but she looks so kind and gentle, it just doesn't stand to
reason, i saw her right there just like the other night as stately as
a slot machine, but when she looked my way something mad as hell came
over me, anasthesia, mona lisa, i've got a little gun, here comes
oblivion, i never loved y ou, how did youfind me? the cops will never
prove complicity now, anna..., all good children go to heaven! i
remember your face that august night when we lied about the beautiful
time to come and that crazy old man who came much too late and caused
a chain reaction, i've been hanging out here for eleven long yeras
like now is driving me to distraction

lie lie lie... the full moon is rising over dark water and the fools
below are picking up sticks and the man in the gallows lies
permanently waiting for the doctors to come back and tend to him, the
flat earth society is meeting here today, singing happy little lies
and the bright ship humana is sent far away with grave
determination... and no destination, lie lie lie... yeah, nothing
feels better than a spray of clean water and the whistling wind on a
calm summer night but you'd better believe that down in their quarters
the men are holding on for their dear lives, the flat earth society is
somewhere far away, with their candlesticks and compasses and the
bright ship humana is well on its way with grave determination... and
no destination, lie lie lie, ad inifinitum

heard a sermon from a creaky pul pit with no one in the nave, i paid a
visit to the synagogue and i left there feeling blame, no one could
tell me what to do, no one had the ability to answer me, what the
world needs now is some answers to our problems, we can't buy more
time because our tender isn't valid, if your soul needs love you can
consoled by pity, but it looks as though faith alone won't sustain us
anymore, watched the scientists throw up their hands conceding,
"pregress will resolve it all", saw the manufacturers of earth's
debris ignore another green peace call, no one could tell me what to
do, they had not the capacity to answer me, what the world needs now
is some accountability, we can't buy more time because time won't
accept our money, if your soul needs love you can always have my pity,
but it looks as though faith alone won't sustain us no more...

random blobs of power expressed as that which we all disregard,
ordered states of nature on a scale that no one thinks about, don't
speak to me of anarchy or peace of calm revolt, man, we're in a play
of slow decay orchestrated by boltzmann, it's entropy, it's not a
human issue, entropy, it's matter of course, entropy, enegery at all
levels, entropy, from it you can not divorce and your pathetic moans
of suffrage tend to lose all significance, extinction, degradation;
the natural outcomes of our ordered lives, power, motivation;
temporary fixtures for which we strive, something in our synapses
assures us we're ok but in our desequilibrium we simply can not stay,
it's entropy..., a stolid proposition from a man unkempt as i, my
affectatious i can not rectify, but we are out of equilibrium
unnaturally, a pang of conciousness at death and then you will agree

three thousand miles of wilderness overcome by the flow, a lonely
restitution of pavement, pomp and show, i seek a thousand answers, i
find but one or two, i maintain no discomfiture, my path again
renewed, against the grain, that's where i'll stay, swimming upstream,
i maintain against the grain, here labelled as a lunatic, sequestered
and content, there ignored and defeated by the government, ther's an
oriented public who's magnetic force does pull, but away from the
potential of the individual, against the grain..., the flow is getting
stronger with smaller increments of time and eddies of new ideas are
increasingly hard to find, you need all that the other has, it is your
right to seize the day, but in all your acquisitions you will soone be
swept away, against the grain..., there's a common consensus and a
uncomfortable cheer, a reverberating chorus that anyone can hear, it
sings "leve your cares behind you, just grab tenaciously", this
lulling sense of purpose will destroy us rapidly, against the grain...

it is an s.o.s. sent out telepathically, signs of our distress don't
allow complacency, we need restoration now of our integrity and a
drastic bold reminder of our morality, the rectifying troop is here,
the ones we have needed all these yers to stop the heious wrongdoings
and verify our moral benevolence as a people, operation rescue,
they're here to right our fall, they have heard a troubled call,
operation rescue, you may wonder where they come from, but i just
wonder why they're here at all, life ever-after is what they're in the
business for, see them brandish the key to their kingdoms door, it's
persuasive, it's a part of yoy and me but it's not overwhelming as
they wish it to be, if no one believed in fairy tales there would be
nothing they could do but fail yet everywhere we look someone is
trying to reassure our moral benevolence as a poeple, operation
rescue..., you may wonder where they come from, but i just wonder what
compels them all

and did those feet in ancient times trod on america's pastuers of
green? and did that anthropocentric god wane with their thoughts and
beliefs all unseen? i don't think so, he's up there with the others
laying low, vying with those who you've traded your life to to bless
your soul, and have they told you how to think, cleansed your mind of
sepsis and automony? or have you escaped scrutiny, and regaled
yourself with depravity? now we all see, "religion is just synthetic
frippery, unnecessary in our expanding global cultural efficiency" and
don't you fear this impasse we have built to our future? ever so near,
and oh so austere

I can't believe it
The way you look sometimes
Like a trampled flag on a city street
Oh yeah

And I don't want it
The things you're offering me
Symbolized barcode, quick I.D
Oh yeah

'Cause I'm a twenty-first century digital boy
I don't know how to live but I got a lot of toys
My daddy's a lazy middle-class intellectual
My mommy's on Valium, so ineffectual
Ain't life a mystery, yeah?

I can't explain it
The things you're're saying to me
It's going yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Oh yeah

'Cause I'm a twenty-first century digital boy
I don't know how to read but I got a lot of toys
My daddy's a lazy middle-class intellectual
My mommy's on Valium, so ineffectual, oh
Ain't life a mystery, yeah?

Tried to tell you about no control
But now I really don't know
And then you told me how bad you had to suffer
Is that really all you have to offer?

'Cause I'm a twenty-first century digital boy
I don't know how to live but I got a lot of toys
My daddy's a lazy middle-class intellectual
My mommy's on Valium, so ineffectual, yeah

(Twenty-first century digital boy) cats, sports, iron claw
(Twenty-first century digital boy) neurosurgeon screams for more
(Twenty-first century digital boy) innocents raped with napalm fire
(Twenty-first century digital boy) everything I want, I really need

Ain't life a mystery, yeah?

so proud a history, replete with sanctity, orbs in their harmony, they
sing their code to me, have you ever heard yourself the orbit that you
are in? the terse, oppressive blanket that's instilled here by our
spin, it's misery and famin, it's a force we cannot see, misery and
famine, it compels us naturally, misery and famine, great ellipse, we
bend to thee, misery and famine, just accept your vagrancy, others who
bear no name, who feel that life's a game, my verse they will defame,
we suffer all the same, they pay no regard to their position or their
speed, but the firmament still covers them with its malevolent seed,
it's misery and famine..., "you look for meaning in things no one
comprehends, you feel no affinity to the rabble we're in", sources of
inquiry have nothing to portend, they will perplex us all until the
coming end, a feeling of despair, hungry and full of care, we resent
everywhere the fortune that we share, "this earth could be a better
place" is a concept i condone, given our pathetic course our destiny
is known, it's misery and famine...

irreducible is the word for today, plastic compounds and nuclear
waste, what the hell is the matter with the pople on this planet? have
we all gone insane? the stigma of industrial progress killing us over
and over agin, one part per trillion... unacceptable, on part per
billion... unacceptable, one part per million... unacceptable, this
mammoth program set upon us courtesy of the U.S.A., inexcusable are
the men before our time, i'd like to kick their ass for what they left
behind, cancer-causing chemicals, ozone-depleting aerosols, we're all
going to fry, so put your head between your legs and kiss your ass
goodbye

offer me eternity, and i'll trade a cup of coffee and a dime, looking
for a handout on behalf of those who have so little time, but who
wants to live on just 70 cents a day? padding your pockets doesn't
make this a better place, "cereal and water" is a feast for some you
say, your price-tag on existence can't cover your double face, quality
or quantity: a choice you have to make, dipping in the icing, bringing
home the largest turkey from the field, breaking all the piggy banks,
scooping up the booty, licking all the right holes, bolstering the
payroll, why reduce life to a dollar amount per day? and why let the
world think this is the american way? your uneaten greens ar a feast
for some you say, survival and living are concepts you can't equate,
quality or quantity don't tell me they're the same

shut off the t.v. and peel off those sunday gloves, and i'll stain the
clean that you've been counting, old mr. fletcher passed by here
today, after 40 years of toil he just stood up and walked away,
fantastic the panic that showed in his eyes, he shrugged when i asked
him about it, he said "young man pay heed, you listen well to what i
say, now there comes a time for a man to walk away", walk away, i'll
be a parade, and i'll be determined that no one shall dissuade on my
way, i'll sure take some time to burn all the bridges that i'm leaving
behind, he passed by again and he was shivering from the cold, i'm not
sure but i think that he was trying, he told me about the weather and
something old to pay, "but tomorrow", he said, "i'm gonna surely walk away"