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culture​:​envy​:​war

from center​:​level​:​roar by Youngblood Brass Band

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lyrics

culture envy culture war
culture envy culture war
culture envy culture war
count your dead
kill your poor

what are we looking to find here? absolution / attainment / atonement / justification
all priced to move / you standing like it's action / bide time with bought rhymes
high five to nine for naught / joke with misdirected lies
who the fuck aren't you kidding?
i knew you back in school / when there less actors to look up to
studying simplicity / we still meant the laughter
if you could love yourself the way you do them
there'd be a life after / the playwrights lowered their guns
there's peace pieces to pick up again / you used to build
mind your pen / remind your pen
i'm sick of the video you've rewound us in / the headaches:
still shots taken in sequence / hung over old dreams to dry
and develop moldy cultures / still:
all this sun and you're sleeping in the dark room
waiting on a film caked thick within / cleaned stained windowsills
instead of taking panes / out of eyes (i'm out of rhymes)
colorless you / hid behind heavy lids / eating surface shit
somewhere deep you swear respect exists (exits upstage right)
tragedy: infinitely more down than a kiss
the assumed and the actual are both a sad performance
an audience will answer if you question them correct
you don't see the bloody entertainers you're trying to resurrect
not knowing you're looking / is atonement cash or check?
absolved and justified / create an ego to protect

center level center roar
center level center roar
center level center roar
is an army
is a form

culture envy culture war
culture envy culture war
culture envy culture war
count your blessings
kill your poor

culture envy world over / respect drunk war sober
i'll fight for no flag and battle all devices
old men divide soil spoils for us to toil indecisive
over whose music's origins are righteous or damned
or if one is the same can both be wrought with your hands
we've wrung out all lands and brought
bought life back to life
only this time we'll go ahead and say the origins were white
heads in the sand that kept us warm from
the rhythms of the night
you'd think history would give fair warning
but it doesn't make for good sales or stories
and don't think we're done stealing the past
or telling it to you second-hand
while tipping the hour glass
and tilting our hats one third cock eyed / now dance.
i remember when the beat moved itself
through sacred trees and ceremonies
a hapless heiroglyph soul-branded
on the open spaces of consciousness
and we are all con-script scrawled across the middle canvas
draw fast + answer nothing
there's no question they've been here
glyph lock pick pockets patrolling the selling block
for cheap/easy targets
the dueling heretics of a new religion
doodling death wish on a fluttery paper soul / draw fast
black canvas impervious to shades' shame
paint the world lovely with indecipherable song
plant the flag of the insane in land unsold
forego the envious and warring to play the unknown
what is culture but the gift of dream
what is life but to sing sleep unseen

center level center roar
center level center roar
center level center roar
in an end many more

culture envy culture war
culture envy culture war
culture envy culture war
count your dead
kill your poor

by now you should've died twice
we're not communicating one line at a time
or a vision of a dying woman on my doorstep
fading fast the second time around
what's inside these sounds you mouth
did you hear the call from across the ages
the sea takes us back too quickly
and i'm far from grounded
now's the time to sail / before the last tree falls
i'm seeing my mentors sage-less / casting outside their realm
ex-spelling p.g. concepts to conjure self
i'm seeing priests prostrate to prophecy / praying in the wrong room
count your blessings / and sell the difference
i'm seeing indifferent souls in different cells
spilling blood like wine just to know they've been here
hold your pitcher / kill your pour
try to clip these wings / still we soar
frantically flapping the face of (not) our kids
heading south to sea too soon to say 'stay - i've seen'
nothing but envy for the green / war for the greed
innumerable dead blessings / and your poor peaceful resting

culture envy culture war
culture envy culture war
culture envy culture war
count your blessings
kill your poor

credits

from center​:​level​:​roar, released January 1, 2003
by Nat McIntosh and David Henzie-Skogen (Layered Music - SESAC)

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Youngblood Brass Band Madison, Wisconsin

Original riot jazz crew, wrecking stages everywhere all the time since 1997. New EP 'Pax Instrumentals’ out now. Members are available for online lessons, commissions, arrangements, and custom studio work as well. Thanks for listening.

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