Kevin Devine - The Burning City Smoking lyrics

40 million refugees with no place on this earth to call their home One for every aimless graduate with nothing else to show for it but loans And those of us who make a mark using someone else's blood Our western stain won't wash away, won't vanish in the flood It's just deeper with each hurricane and tidal wave and war Oh whoa oh woh We want everything we see and once it's gone we just want more Atlas had those shoulders, we've got Am bien and Jamesons and blow To bind us in a bubble, keep the newsprint nightmare distant and remote But when we wake in guillotines and pitch our screaming fits When the Governor strikes up the band and gags our parted lips When the worst case shows up dressed and dazzling ready for the ball Oh whoa oh woh Boy that bubble's bound to burst and what a tragic way to fall The tabloids tell us hate the rat who strikes those subways closed and puts you out Forget those 50-hour tunnel weeks inhaling steel dust poison through his mouth Well if he don't deserve a pension that makes his family feel secure If we're now so disconnected it's our relfections we ignore And if our constant choice is skimming past the writing on the wall Oh whoa oh woh Then I'm sad to say we're lost and I'm embarra**ed for us all So most days I can't put to rest the burning city smoking in my mind And I play pretend the principals are nothing more than actors running lines And I stumble through a movie set where torture victims laugh At abandoned journalist who juggled knives and daggered gla** While they entertain the marble Heads of State and CEO's Oh whoa oh woh I stagger past anarchist extras through saloon doors painted gold So I turn and I see Uncle Sam, walks out of wardrobe ready for the shoot So I walk right up and talk to him, I tell him that I'm scared and I'm confused While they test the cameras out and get the lighting right, while catering fills coffee cups and carves up apple pie And while the stylists trim his beard and straighten those lapels Oh whoa oh woh I ask was it pies that made him drive us straight to hell and as my daydream ends he stands there shamed, a shocked and shattered shell But there's never any answer for my starving tongue to tell Oh whoa oh woh oh oh Cause the director's shouting action and from off set it's just as well