I posted a simpler, cleaner version of WE ARE THE ENEMY last year, but I’ve revisited the first version and decided that, though it has some similar lines, it has a few different kinds of things to say. I’m battling a lot of feelings that are bigger than me, so big I can barely put them into words. I decided to borrow, for now.
WE ARE THE ENEMY 2.0
Truth, justice, and the American way Heroes fly with stars and stripes, red and blue and white It’s all okay at the end of an American day How we do it doesn’t matter if we’re right.
God bless America, we’re right, so we must be good And if we’re good, we can’t be wrong And if we can’t be wrong, we do what we should We do what we should, with an oath and a song.
We are the villains in too many stories And not just those of those we condemn We think power makes us strong And strength gives us the right to win.
That because we are strong, we must be good That because we are good, we must be free But look at what we do, look at what we’ve made of you and me We are the enemy.
Holding the unfinished in steel claws While buildings crumble to the ground Our words are sacred, absolute oaths Never to be torn, burned, or bound.
All without words spoken, without the mark Can fall to the conviction of our words Our deeds are counted by the cruelties dealt Cards we call good, the right of the sword.
I never thought I’d see the day I never thought I’d see the day When there were people we didn’t need to save Sacrificed because they had the wrong name Because they didn’t play the right game Or didn’t resist wrong the right way.
I never thought I’d see the day Until the day I knew it had been here all along Trails of tears, trails of blood Stepping on the bodies of innocents To climb to the top and tell ourselves It’s our day, our sun Because we’re the ones casting the shadow We never put down the sword or the word There was never depth too low for us to go As we cursed those casting shade in the shadow we made.
Because here I thought we were trying Instead of lying and calling it truth Instead of executions called justice out of court Instead of pride for an American way That’s always been the American way.
I knew we were bad. I thought we were better.
We are the villains in too many stories And not just those of those we condemn We think power makes us strong And strength gives us the right to win.
That because we are strong, we must be good That because we are good, we must be free But look at what we do, look at what we’ve made of you and me We are the enemy.
I haven’t gotten many songs written this year, because I’ve felt too strongly for anything to coalesce into something substantial. But I managed to put something into words, things I’m afraid of saying, but it’s done. The sickness hasn’t quite left my chest yet, but it’s done.
WE ARE THE ENEMY
We thought we were heroes We tried to be We wanted to be We said we were good We said we were free Free to be good Free to be bad We could choose the we that we wanted to be We made the choice We decided not to see We made it from the start We were and are and ever will be We thought we were heroes We are the enemy.
We’re the heroes of our story The greatest country In the smallest world Built with blood money Grown from flesh seeds Of brown cocoa And black coffee Of corn and cotton under a chopped cherry tree We deny responsibility If it wasn’t personally When under other names Still degradation of humanity We thought we were heroes We are the enemy.
Never villains of our story Inconceivable that we’d ever be Treason to even claim Unpatriotic, unthinkable treachery That means we won’t listen No longer have to hear No longer have to see We’re villains if our villains do the same things We condemn the evil deeds In a mirror, cry deniability If we say it enough times We think everyone will believe We thought we were heroes We are the enemy.
Stab a knife in the high ground And dig two graves One the bed we made The other the dead we laid Layers and layers tall We say they make us feel small And that the bed we made Isn’t comfortable at all There’s only so many times To deny that we fall And to pretend that we would never Have been a villain, too, through it all.
If we say it enough times We think everyone will believe In what we say Instead of what they see We thought we were heroes We are the enemy.
File under “Sometimes I get mad.” I wrote this last year as an indictment against systemic racism, from incarceration to economic opportunity, set in a reimagined world of non-human animals. Because what can I say, I watch a lot of Disney.
VULTURES
Scavengers caught in cages
Different stages of difficult phases
Fangs filed, claws clipped
To the bone, wings snipped.
Ribs press against skin
As spectators stare in
At beasts who never stood a chance
And never stand a chance again.
Fresh apples in dead mouths
Fresh blood, draining down
Decaying flesh, begging hand unfurled.
When did vultures get to rule the world?
Gold glints in their eyes
Black velvet circling the skies
Safe from the kill, prey the predator’s own.
When did vultures get to rule the world?
Beasts of work, beasts of burden
Unburdened by strain of security
Best to stay low to the ground
Better to maintain the purity.
Hungry eyes, the grass is greener
Where it isn’t needed.
What’s a hare to do
With something to care for, my dear?
Just another bit of roadkill.
No one’s crying, my dear.
Carrion desiccation
Unrepentant desecration
Each poor dying soul strung like a pearl.
When did vultures get to rule the world?
Everything collapses
And dignity lapses
There’s always dissatisfaction
For them to feast upon
A battered, bloody violent reaction
For them to feast upon
As though it doesn’t matter
Which beast they feast upon.
And the predators know
To leave a generous share.
Let the thoroughfare war
Over whether it’s fair.
There’s always more dead to go around.
Always something to blame farther down on the ground.
When did vultures get to rule the world?
When did vultures get to rule the world?
They say demons that tempt you walk in deserts
And the deserts are expanding all the time
Tumbleweeds are our new unit of measure
We just passed the last rusted street sign.
They say there’s gold in them there hills
At night, you hear cries and flashing lights
The moths flock in to eat their decaying fill
Promised cold ends in a warm paradise.
But the games are all rigged
And the house always wins,
The promise a mirage,
Successes the sins.
There are many roads and doors
To a hell with many levels
Another one bites the dust
As soon as the last red dust cloud settles
The wolves, they wear white wool
And the lambs howl like rebels
If we’re entertaining angels
Then aren’t we also entertaining devils?
There is more than one dead end coming
Red paint on cardboard says an end is nigh
With long dead language, the demons are summoned
With living words, the demon have learned to lie.
Abundant feasts have gone brown and spoiled
Laughter follows as the weakest fall
Nothing but fog for which men have toiled
Dancing in the streets from the latest thrall.
The party continues on
Until we wear through the soles
When laughs turn to screams
There’s no buying what we sold.
There are many roads and doors
To a hell with many levels
Another one bites the dust
As soon as the last red dust cloud settles
The wolves, they wear white wool
And the lambs howl like rebels
If we’re entertaining angels
Then aren’t we also entertaining devils?
From the view of the mad, the sane seem worse
Sanity’s heart is sanity’s curse
Hell’s unemployed, basking in the glow
There’s no telling how far man will go
To keep the wheels turning
And the candles burning
And the spirits yearning
For something already sacrificed
To the discerning gentleman
With scotch on ice
Who makes sure no one’s learning
What feeds the beast, what feeds a man
What need have we for devils
When we do so well ourselves?
Half the fun of wreaking havoc
Is knowing how many angels fell.
There are many roads and doors
To a hell with many levels
Another one bites the dust
As soon as the last red dust cloud settles
The wolves, they wear white wool
And the lambs howl like rebels
If we’re entertaining angels
Then aren’t we also entertaining devils?
If I keep going like this, I could have a whole album of apocalypse songs.
WHAT ARE YOU WEARING TO THE END OF THE WORLD?
Everything falling to pieces around you
The core of the apple has gone to the worms
The surface is cracked but the planet still turns
The Earth will do just fine without us.
But what will we decimate into our chaos?
How else to sully our decadent names?
Arsenic apple pie and murdering games
In prosperity and in plastic we trust.
Chorus:
On this day of our Lord, I ask only one thing
The chains are all rattling, the pendulum swings
The roses are dying and thorns are unfurled
What are you wearing to the end of the world?
Leather and lace go with shame and disgrace
The meteor falls in red fire silk
Volcanoes are flowing with honey and milk
But the milk is laced with sweet poison
Stilettos in pockets and the heels of our shoes
Pistols spin in pistoning security machines
Bad boys go worse and the good girls go mean
Here’s the handbasket to hearse into hell in.
Chorus:
On this day of our Lord, I ask only one thing
The chains are all rattling and the pendulum swings
The roses are dying and thorns are unfurled
What are you wearing to the end of the world?
They’re serving a feast speared with silver-lined spoons
The glazes look fine but taste of ash and of dust
The golden-gild cages are tarnished in rust
But we cannot break open any of our locks.
Dressed to the nines and down to the wire
The fur is all fake, blood-mined diamonds and stones
We’re dancing on shoes worn down to the bone
The servants keep turning back all of the clocks.
Bridge:
The masque of the red death holds sway over all
When the apocalypse hits, we head for the mall
The Beast has a number and our number’s come up
There are debts to be paid. On your knees, ante up
Hell is just empty and the devils all here
Amputated hands steer a carnival wheel.
We know what we’ve done, no more acts of contrition.
Lay back in the earth and think on your sin.
Chorus:
On this day of our Lord, I ask only one thing
The chains are all rattling and the pendulum swings
The roses are dying and thorns are unfurled
What are you wearing to the end of the world?
I’ve debated whether to share this song. I’ve shared a few other socially conscious pieces (Vultures, Fools), but this is the one I always come back to when I’m really, really angry, and that’s usually the shit that people jump on as something that needs to be extinguished immediately before someone actually expresses a negative, opposing thought or feeling.
I love you, but I’m really angry all the time. I look back at what this country came from, what it created, everything we’ve done, where we are now, and just get so frustrated how little the big things change. How progress isn’t forward but sideways. How human nature screws us over and no one listens and no one learns, and it’s always been there. It’s our entire industrious, ignominious history. It’s what we’re made of, what we built our foundation on, and I hate seeing that washed away or reframed or dismissed as though guilt and shame are somehow an irrational – or treasonous – response.
I carry with me pockets of history that seem like reflection – from the Salem Witch Trials to the Civil War to the suffragettes to the civil rights movement, from the first wave of colonists and all subsequent immigrants that all previous immigrants lamented. To everything going on now as though nothing has fucking changed at all. To a clock approaching midnight and all the gears and springs falling out, but we still keep polishing and winding the damn thing like it’s working the way it’s supposed to.
I’m mad. So I bring in the history, and I bring in the metaphors. Please don’t crucify me. (Part of sharing these songs is to take risks, and one of those risks is that people won’t like me. I don’t handle that well or sometimes at all, but I’ll probably survive. So you don’t have to like me or what I say.)
CITY ON THE HILL
Ivory-skinned pilgrims in sober black clothes
Sailed to a new world, fleeing inadequate souls
Built their city on a hill upon fields of stone
In anger and hunger, virtue took its own toll.
From scaffold and stones to chains and bones
The city rose west, boots on blood and on tears
With a vow that what came was worth all the cost
Because all of the world would rejoice we were here.
Chorus:
The city on the hill, now the city on fire
Every year’s ashes build its flames higher
From the last lighthouse another funeral pyre
Lives left in ruins by silver-tongued liars
If the city on the hill refuses to learn
Maybe it’s time to let it all burn.
We carve our casualties into weeping walls
Lock our strangers in prisons till memories fade
We draw and drown witches of all of our fears
While they float for the lies that every judge made.
We raise our own monuments, sing our own songs
Until skulls crack from all the deafening sounds
From deplorable vices cloaked in virtuous days
Burying beauty and history in unhallowed grounds.
Chorus
Bridge:
We build walls to keep out the ones we invade
And towers to rise from the bodies we laid
O new ‘Salem, O suspicion and pain
Paranoia in your heart and blood on your name.
Amanda M. Blake 