The Burning City Smoking Songtext / Lyric

Forty 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 our mark

Use someone else's blood

Our western stain won't wash away

It won't vanish in the flood



It seeps deeper through each hurricane

And tidal wave and war

Oh, woah, oh, oh, we want everything we see

And once it's gone we just want more



Atlas had those shoulders

We've got Ambien

And Jameson's and blow

To bind us in a bubble






And keep the newsprint nightmare

Distant and remote

But when we wake in guiltiness

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, woah, oh, oh, but that bubbles bound to burst

And what a tragic way to fall



The tabloids tell us hate the rat

Who strikes those subways closed and put's you out

Forget those fifty 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 reflections we ignore



And if our constant choice is skimming

Past the writing on the wall

Oh, woah, oh, oh, then I'm sad to say we're lost

And I'm embarrassed for us all



So most days I can't put to rest

The burning city smoking in my mind

And I play and pretend

The principles are nothin' more

Than actors runnin' lines



And I stumble through a movie set

Where tortured victims laugh

And embedded journalists

Who juggle knives and daggered glass



While they entertain a mob of heads

Of state and CEO's

Oh, woah, oh, oh, I stagger past anarchist extras

Through saloon doors painted gold



So I turn and I see Uncle Sam

Outside a wardrobe ready for a shoot

So I walk right up and talk to him

I tell him that I'm scared and I'm confused



And while they test the cameras out

And get the lighting right

While the catering fills coffee cups

And carves up apple pie



And while the stylists trim his beard

And straighten those lapels

Oh, woah, oh, oh, I ask his empires

What made him drive us straight to hell?



And as my daydream ends, he stands ashamed

A shocked and shattered shell

But there's never any answer

For my starving tongue to tell



Woah, oh, oh, oh

'Cause the director shouted action

And from offset it's just as well