1. |
Conquest I: Sedition
03:56
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If they took your clothes
If they stole your sheets
If they took your eyes
Or deprived you of your sleep
If they held you down
If they bit your tongue
If they bent your limbs
And dragged you through the streets
If they broke your heart
Or if they stole your love
Bide your time in silence, we’ll pay them back with violence
They will taste sedition as we break the institution
If you have your strength
And if you have your wits
If you’ve got your voice
I promise you’ll be heard
If you give your sweat
And if you give your blood
If you give your life
If you give your soul
You can have a chance
To be the greater good
Bide your time in silence, we’ll pay them back with violence
They will taste sedition as we break the institution
(All men must face things they fear, some men become the things they fear)
There’s no more need for you to hide yourself
The walls they fell and we have freedom now
Day by day we’ll build our lives again
And put them back the way they should have been
There’s no more need to live our lives in fear
But fear is old and sometimes comfortable
Bit by bit we’ll make mistakes again
As children grow into the men they feared
And all men fear
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2. |
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I will rule you if it’s the last thing I do
You’ve held me down too long
Off with his head!
And off with your head!
And off with everyone’s head!
Everyone’s head!
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3. |
Conquest III: Conquest
02:58
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(Instrumental)
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4. |
Conquest IV: Conquered
03:14
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Nothing could save all that I had planned
I ended myself before I began
I put no foundation beneath the walls
I built up the framework and watched it fall
(Once it was set in motion, I had no choice at all)
Memory is not kind to those that fail
and valiant intentions will not prevail
With all my defiance left unheard
Here I lay conquered by only words
Since life’s a song that always gets played wrong
When do the mistakes become the part that belong?
How do I let it go?
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5. |
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Wind, sea and flame
Lightning and rain
and swarms of things
Wood, steel and stone
To call it a home and act like a king
Despite the fact that these walls
are all that separate me from that world
One meager little gate
The Earth could tear us all apart
It’s been trying from the start
When our moment is due
Will time take all of the things we knew?
When this era is through
Our dust will be part of something new
Maybe life is just a flicker - probably even less
In a flame that keeps on growing
And the world goes on without us
Erasing every sign we were ever here
Nothing ever truly is timeless
Cities turn to ivy and buildings fall
They’ll be crumbling all around us
They’ll collapse until the Earth forgets us all
Just like we were never here
Don’t be afraid
Let’s lie in the mess we’ve made
and pretend it won’t disappear
Alive for another year
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6. |
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Two eyes no stranger, to bone bitter cold
Lifetimes of winter, is all that I’ve known
The dogs are at bay
At least for tonight
This fire burns
At least for tonight
My belly is full
At least for tonight
Today the cold wasn’t so bad
Today I bathed in the sunlight
Today, just one day in my life
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7. |
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Can’t You feel it?
A storm is coming
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8. |
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We came to see the humans
Yeah we came to see you humans
But you’re gone, gone, gone
You thought you’d destroyed the planet
You only destroyed yourselves
And now you’re gone, gone, gone
The earth can heal itself
You humans were just a disease
And now your gone, gone, gone
Look at the fossils
That’s all that’s left
They’re gone and nothing here
Can bring them back again
They are dead, dead
Ah, they’re dead, so dead
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9. |
Brevity I: People
01:41
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(Words by Bukowski)
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10. |
Brevity II: Too Soon
01:13
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When I grow old, who will I be?
When I look back, what will I see?
Everything worth living for ends too soon
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11. |
Brevity III: Ante
01:07
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Spent my life winning favor
But I can’t win my own
Give my heart to strangers
Still I don’t feel loved
A man can play his cards
But he can’t choose the deck
And it helps if he gambles
I haven’t gambled yet
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12. |
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Hope is a glimmer inside an endless tunnel
Balance is the vortex in the center of a funnel
Reason is looking underneath the question
Truth is rarely true
Life is so simple
So simple that I’ll never understand
Everything is complex but nothing is complicated
And in the stillness, everything’s still animated
It can’t be summed up in a single statement
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13. |
Brevity V: Say It
01:23
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See you sittin’ real still
With a grimace on your mug
Just open your mouth
Let the words fall out
I can’t read your mind
By looking at your head
So spit that shit out
Move the fuck on
You’re wasting my time
Spinning your wheels
So open your mouth
Make each word count
Just fuckin’ say it
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14. |
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Thank you and goodbye
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15. |
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Heavy breakdown in mood
Am I out of control?
Am I not in control?
Or is it…
The sleepiness is consuming everything?
All these questions are logical
Not impossible
Not for you
I’m sick and tired of wanting more
Than I’ve had before
Where’s the line?
I’m sideways or upside down, I’m talking to myself
Goddamn, how did I end up with broken dreams?
Or am I just wrong as usual?
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16. |
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I feel it coming from all sides
Trying to find out what I’m hiding
Telling me the words that I won’t say
But my mouth can’t seem to make a sound
My eyes won’t stray far from the ground
I’m not sure sure how to keep the wolves at bay
The world seems cruel and strange
Something I can’t seem to change
When the clouds are forming in my mind
The feeling leaves me almost blind
The light changes from yellow into grey
Flimsy and see-through
Eyes glazed by granite hue
But she gets me to believe
I could be free
From all the weight that’s on my back
The load will lighten when I chose to leave
The fear to trust another human being
The load will lighten when I chose to leave
The fear to trust in me
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17. |
Doubt III: Doubt
02:17
|
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(Instrumental)
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18. |
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Faster! There’s no time to delay!
The days in this life are few
But I’m certain I’ll always find a way
To doubt what I need to do
to keep my troubles from coming to repeat
I keep running though the ground
has vanished from beneath my feet
Don’t look now
The sky’s replaced the street
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19. |
Money I: Worth
02:17
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Nothing makes me miserable like money
It’s the source of all my worries in some way
The hand that’s first to greet you
Might be the first to cheat you
And it’s hard to find a hand
When you’ve got debts to pay
There is something is poisonous about money
And there is nothing quite as inhumane as greed
It gives power to imposters
and turns good people into monsters
It gets dangled over heads of those with mouths to feed
We beg for work so we can waste all our days
Trying to earn enough for someone else to take away
The lure is sweet but the net is wide
And most of us are caught inside
With no chance to get away
Nothing that you earn can increase your worth
The best things are more valuable than money
But without it, it can be so hard to breath
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20. |
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I had my two cents and it grew into five
Didn’t lift a finger, just had to exist
Now I’m lying down in a bed of guilt
Feeling I’ve got to prove that a man can provide
I’ll say it once and never again
I should have started sooner than now
It’s never enough when you show what you have
People have expectation- fill they’re reached out hands
And always someone somewhere has a knife at your back
Even if you’ve got money you can still be depressed
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21. |
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Are those that make the machine
Worth more than the machine itself?
Cities get built on the backs of the many
While the mansions and palaces are made from their pennies
Surpluses end up with those that have plenty
While the scraps that remain are divided in twenty
Iron is worth less than gold
and blood is worth more than wine
And when we get old
Nothing is worth more than time
Are those that make the machine
Worth more than the machine itself?
Fortunes are built on the backs of the many
While the urchins and paupers are left with their pennies
To dream, and work, and dream, and work some more
Until the day is done, same as it begun
To dream, and work, and dream, and work some more
Until our lives are done, same as they begun
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22. |
Money IV: The Gold Calf
03:07
|
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Too late, we can’t go back in time
We’re stuck, foundation’s laid but we’re broken
Cash may as well be our self worth
But money’s worth nothing without us giving it value
It’s idiotic
But we swallow every drop of poison
Telling ourselves we’re worth it
Capital is like a gold a calf
And if we had the chance we’d milk it right to death
Capital’s a dirty whore who always steals our wallet
But when we get a second chance we jump like we’ve never been laid
Those with the most care the least, share the least, give the least
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Elegant Mess Los Angeles, California
Elegant Mess is the combined effort of recording artists/producers/film music composers/weirdos Howard Buckwold and Preston Gabriel Garland.
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