BAD RELIGION - AGAINST THE GRAIN - 1990

MODERN MAN
(Greg Graffin)
I’ve got nothing to say,
I’ve got nothing to do.
All of my neurons are functioning smoothly
Yet still I’m a cyborg just like you.

I am one big myoma that thinks:
My planet supports only me,
I’ve got this one big problem: Will I live forever?
I’ve got just a short time to see.

Modern man, evolutionary betrayer,
Modern man, ecosystem destroyer.
Modern man, destroy yourself in shame,
Modern man, pathetic example of earth's organic heritage.

When I look back and think,
When I ponder and ask “why?”,
I see my ancestors spend with careless abandon,
Assuming eternal supply.

Modern man, evolutionary betrayer,
Modern man, ecosystem destroyer.
Modern man, destroy yourself in shame,
Modern man, pathetic example of earth's organic heritage.

Just a sample of carbon-based wastage,
Just a fucking tragic epic of you and I.

TURN ON THE LIGHT
(Brett Gurewitz)
I had a friend who kept a candle in his pocket,
He used to touch it when the wind was blowing high,
I guess it made him feel like he could buck the system
And when it flickered out we laid him down to die.

Turn on the light,
Turn on a million blinding
brilliant white incendiary lights,
A beacon in the night,
I’ll burn relentlessly
Until my juice runs dry.

I’ll construct a rock of tempered beams and trusses
And equip it with a million tiny suns,
I’ll install upon the roof on my compartment
And place tinfoil on my floor and on my walls.

Turn on the light,
Turn on a million blinding
brilliant white incendiary lights,
A beacon in the night,
I’ll burn relentlessly
Until my juice runs dry.

And I’ll burn like a roman fucking candle,
Burn like a chasm in the night,
For a miniscule duration, ecstatic immolation,
Incorrigible delight.

GET OFF
(Greg Graffin)
Lascivious, it’s all that I can think of
As I drag my feet searching like a Diogenes.
Dangerous, the adjective of the decade
And of your alluring intricacies.

I can see your green-screen mentality
And I can feel the sting of it’s consequence,
And I know I shouldn't, but it’s too much to ignore,
An emotion I deplore.

Every time I look at you, I just want do it,
I can clench my fist right through it,
But I just want to get off.

Rectilinear, this direction we’ve been heading
Never realizing we are on a runaway machine,
Angular, the momentum that does turn us one
Step further on our ladder, one more turn toward the east.

I realize your green-screen mentality
And I know it is shared by many more,
I know it’s quite impossible, but I am damned to find a way
to revolve the other way.

Every time I scrutinize I just say “screw it”,
We’re on a ride down a blind conduit
And I just want to get off.

BLENDERHEAD
(Brett Gurewitz)
Flying through a dark prismatic tunnel on a carousel,
The earth is turning and you know it very well.
Your mind is reeling like ten helicopters wheeling
And you’re gonna hit the ceiling like a mallet on a bell.

Hey, blenderhead, they’re starting to ask questions,
Your transgressions are a danger flashing sign.
Challenge conventions and radiate your splendor
And feel those flywheels churn on your blenderhead.

Tally up the gleaming tender ventured on a wishing well,
Each shining trinket has a story it can tell.
Your moments pining like those tales all intertwining
Can become the rusted lining of a deep neglected shell.

Hey, blenderhead, you ask so many questions,
Your confusion's a life-affirming sign.
Break from tradition and carry on with valor
And feel those flywheels churn your blenderhead.

POSITIVE ASPECT OF NEGATIVE THINKING
(Jay Bentley)
Let’s gather ‘round the carcass of the old deflated beast,
We have seen it through the accolades and rested in it’s lea,
Syntactic is our elegance, incisive our disease,
The swath endogenous of ourselves will be our quandary.

We’ve nestled in it’s hollow and we’ve suckled at it’s breast,
Grandiloquent in attitude, impassioned yet inept,
Frivolous gavel our design, ludicrous or threat,
Excursive expeditions leave us holding less and less.

So what does it mean?
When we tell ourselves it’s only for a while we have been deceived
And it’s only for a moment that the treasures of our day
Make life easier to complicate,
The treasure thrown away.
I’m so tired of all the fucked up minds,
Of all the terrorist religions and their bullshit lines,
Of all the hand-me-downs from all industrial crimes
And the weeping mothers and those who are led so blind,
Of the plastic protests and the hands of time
And the pursuit of mirth and all hating kind.

ANESTHESIA
(Brett Gurewitz)
Everybody is talking about the girl
Who went and killed the delivery man,
But she looks so kind and gentle,
It just doesn't stand to reason.
I saw her right there just the other night
As stately as a slot machine,
But when she looked my way
Something mad as hell came over me, yeah.

Anesthesia, Mona Lisa,
I’ve got a little gun, here comes oblivion.
I never loved you, how did you find me?
The cops will never prove complicity now.
Anna...
(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
All good children go to heaven!

I remember your face that August night
When we lied about the beautiful time to come,
And that crazy old man who came much to late
And caused a chain reaction.
I’ve been hanging out here for eleven long years
Like a church mouse wondering where the cat has gone,
And looking at you now is driving me to distraction.

Anesthesia, Mona Lisa,
I’ve got a little gun, here comes oblivion.
I never loved you, how did you find me?
The cops will never prove complicity now.
Anna...
(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
All good children go to heaven!

FLAT EARTH SOCIETY
(Brett Gurewitz)
Lie, lie, lie...

The full moon is rising over dark water
And the fools below are picking up sticks.
And the man in the gallows lies permanently,
Waiting for the doctors to come back and tend to him.

The flat earth society is meeting here today,
Singing happy little lies,
And the bright ship humana is sailing far away
with grave determination,
And no destination.

Lie, lie, lie...

Yeah, nothing feels better than a spray of clean water
And the whistling wind on a calm summer night,
but you’d better believe that down in their quarters
The men are holding in for their dear lives.

The flat earth society is somewhere far away,
With their candlesticks and compasses,
And the bright ship humana is well on its way
With grave determination,
And no destination.

Lie, lie, lie, ad infinitum...

FAITH ALONE
(Greg Graffin)
Heard a sermon from a creaky pulpit with no one in the nave.
I paid a visit to the synagogue and I left there feeling blame.
No one can tell me what to do;
They had not the capacity to answer me.

What the world needs now is some answers to our problems.
We can’t buy more time because our tender isn’t valid.
If your soul needs love, you can get consoled by pity,
But it looks as though faith alone won’t sustain us no more.

Watched the scientists throw up their hands conceding, “Progress will resolve it all.”
Saw the manufacturers of Earth’s debris ignore another Green Peace call.
No one could tell me what to do;
No one had the ability to answer me.

What the world needs now is some accountability.
We can’t buy more time ‘cause time won’t accept our money.
If your soul needs love, you can always have my pity,
But it looks as though faith alone won’t sustain us no more.
What the world needs now is some answers to our problems.
We can’t buy more time 'cause our tender isn’t valid.
What the world needs now is some accountability.
If your soul needs love, you can get consoled by pity,
But faith alone won’t sustain us anymore.
Faith alone won’t sustain us anymore... [repeat and fade]

ENTROPY
(Greg Graffin)
Random blobs of power expressed as that which we all disregard,
Ordered states of nature on a scale that no one thinks about.
Don’t speak to me of anarchy of peace or calm revolt,
Man, we’re in a play of slow decay orchestrated by Boltzmann.

It’s entropy, it’s not a human issue,
Entropy, it’s a matter of course.
Entropy, energy at all levels,
Entropy, from it you can not divorce.
And your pathetic moans of suffrage tend to lose all significance.

Extinction, degradation: The natural outcomes of our ordered lives.
Power, motivation: Temporary fixtures for which we strive.
Something in our synapses assures us we’re ok,
But in our disequilibrium we simply can not stay.

It’s entropy, it’s not a human issue,
Entropy, it’s a matter of course.
Entropy, energy at all levels,
Entropy, from it you can not divorce.

A stolid proposition from a man unkempt as I,
My affectatious I can not rectify,
But we are out of equilibrium unnaturally,
A pang of consciousness of death
And then you will agree.

It’s entropy.
Entropy, it's a matter of course.
Entropy, energy at all levels,
Entropy, from it you can not divorce.
Entropy,
Entropy,
Entropy,
Entropy!

AGAINST THE GRAIN
(Greg Graffin)
Three thousand miles of wilderness
Overcome by the flow.
A lonely restitution of pavement,
Pomp and show,
I seek a thousand answers,
I find but one or two,
I maintain no discomfiture,
My path again renewed.

Against the grain,
That’s where I’ll stay.
Swimming upstream,
I maintain against the grain.

Here labeled as a lunatic,
Sequestered and content,
There ignored and defeated
By the government.
There’s an oriented public
Whose magnetic force does pull,
But away from the potential of the individual.

Against the grain,
That’s where I’ll stay.
Swimming upstream,
I maintain against the grain.

The flow is getting stronger
With smaller increments of time.
And Eddies of new ideas are
Increasingly hard to find,
You need all that the other has,
Your right to seize the day,
But in all your acquisitions
You will soon be swept away.

Against the grain,
That’s where I’ll stay.
Swimming upstream,
I maintain against the grain.

There’s a common consensus
And an uncomfortable cheer,
A reverberating chorus that anyone can hear,
It sings “leave your cares behind you,
Just grab tenaciously”,
This lulling sense or purpose
Will destroy us rapidly.

Against the grain,
That’s where I’ll stay.
Swimming upstream,
I maintain against the grain.

OPERATION RESCUE
(Greg Graffin)
It’s an S.O.S. sent out telepathically,
Signs of our distress don’t allow complacency,
We need restoration now of our integrity and a
Drastic bold reminder of our morality.

The rectifying troop is here,
The ones we have needed all these years
To stop the heinous wrongdoings and verify
Our moral benevolence as a people.

Operation! Operation rescue,
They’re here to right our fall,
They’ve heard a troubled call.

Operation! Operation rescue,
You may wonder where they come from,
But I just wonder why they're here at all.

Yayayayaya yayayayaya yayayayaya yayayaya.

Life ever-after is what they’re in business for,
See them brandish the key to our kingdom's door.
It’s persuasive, it’s a part of you and me
But it’s not overwhelming as they wish it to be.

If no one believed in fairy tales,
There would be nothing they could do but fail.
Yet everywhere we look someone is trying to reassure
Our moral benevolence as a people.

Operation! Operation rescue,
They’re here to right our fall,
They’ve heard someone’s troubled call.

Operation! Operation rescue,
You may wonder where they come from,
But I just wonder what compels them all.

Operation! Operation rescue,
Operation! Operation rescue,
You may wonder where they come from,
But I just wonder what compels them all.
Yaya yayaya yaya yayaya yaya yayaya.

GOD SONG
(Greg Graffin)
And did those feet in ancient times
Trod on America’s pastures of green?
And did that anthropocentric god wane
With their thoughts and beliefs all unseen?

I don’t think so,
He’s up there with the others lying low,
Vying with those who you’ve traded
Your life to bless your soul.

And have they told you how to think,
Cleansed your mind of sepsis and autonomy?
Or have you escaped scrutiny,
And regaled yourself with depravity?

Now we all see, religion is just
Synthetic frippery, unnecessary
In our expanding global culture efficiency.

And don’t you fear this impasse
We have built to our future?
Ever so near,
And oh so austere.

21st CENTURY (DIGITAL BOY)
(Brett Gurewitz)
I can’t believe it,
The way you look sometimes,
Like a trampled flag on a city street,
Oh yeah.

And I don’t want it,
The things you're offering me,
Symbolized bar code, quick ID,
Oh yeah.

I’m a 21st century digital boy,
I don’t know how to live
But I’ve got a lot of toys,
My daddy is a lazy middle class intellectual,
My mommy’s on valium,
She’s so ineffectual,
Ain’t life a mystery?

I can’t explain it,
The things they’re saying to me,
It’s going yayayayayayaya,
Oh yeah.

I’m a 21st century digital boy,
I don’t know how to read
But I’ve got a lot of toys,
My daddy is a lazy middle class intellectual,
My mommy’s on valium,
She’s so ineffectual,
Ain’t life a mystery?

I tried to tell you about no control,
But now I really don’t know.

And then you told me how bad you had to suffer,
Is that really all you have to offer?

See I’m a 21st century digital boy,
I don’t know how to read
But I’ve got a lot of toys,
My daddy is a lazy middle class intellectual,
My mommy’s on valium,
She’s so ineffectual,
Ain’t life a mystery?

Cat’s foot, iron claw, (21st century digital boy)
Neurosurgeons scream for more, (21st century digital boy)
Innocence raped with napalm fire, (21st century digital boy)
Anything I want, I really need. (21st century digital boy)

21st century schitzoid boy,
21st century video boy,
21st century digital boy,
21st century sofa boy...

MISERY AND FAMINE
(Greg Graffin)
So proud a history, replete with sanctity,
Orbs in their harmony, they sing their code to me.
Have you ever heard yourself in the orbit that you are in?
The terse, oppressive blanket that’s instilled here by our spin.

It’s misery and famine, it’s a force we cannot see,
Misery and famine, it compels us naturally.
Misery and famine, great ellipse, we bend to thee,
misery and famine, just accept your vagrancy.

Others who bear no name, who feel that life's a game,
My verse they will defame, we suffer all the same.
They pay no regard to their position or their speed,
But the firmament still covers them with its malevolent seed.

It’s misery and famine, it’s a force we cannot see,
Misery and famine, it compels us naturally.
Misery and famine, great ellipse, we bend to thee,
Misery and famine, just accept your vagrancy.

You look for meaning in things no one comprehends,
You feel no affinity to the rabble we’re in,
Sources of inquiry have nothing to portend,
They will perplex us all until the coming end, until the coming end.

A feeling of despair, hungry and full of care,
We resent everywhere the fortune that we share.
“This earth could be a better place” is a concept I condone,
Given our pathetic course our destiny is known.

It’s misery and famine, it’s a force we cannot see,
Misery and famine, it compels us naturally.
Misery and famine, great ellipse, we bend to thee,
Misery and famine, just accept your vagrancy.
Misery and famine,
Misery and famine,
Misery and famine,
Misery and famine.

UNACCETABLE
(Jay Bentley)
Irreducible is the word for today,
Plastic compounds and nuclear waste,
What the hell is the matter with the people
On this planet? Have we all gone insane?
The stigma of industrial progress killing us
Over and over again.

One part per trillion...unacceptable!
One part per billion...unacceptable!
One part per million...unacceptable!
This mammoth pogrom set upon courtesy of the USA.

Inexcusable are the men before our time,
I’d like to kick their ass for what they left behind,
Cancer-causing chemicals, ozone-depleting aerosols:
We’re all going to fry, so put your head between your legs
And kiss your ass goodbye.

One part per trillion...unacceptable!
One part per billion...unacceptable!
One part per million...unacceptable!

(Repeat ad infinitum.)

QUALITY OR QUANTITY
(Greg Graffin)
Offer me eternity, and I'll trade a cup of coffee and a dime,
Looking for a handout behalf of those who have so little time.
But who wants to live on just 70 cents a day?
Padding your pockets doesn’t make this a better place,
Cereal and water is a feast for some, you say,
Your price tag on existence can’t cover your double-face.

Quality or quantity, quality or quantity,
Quality or quantity: A choice you have to make.

Dipping in the icing, bringing home the largest turkey from the field,
Breaking all the piggy banks, scooping up the booty,
Licking all the right holes, bolstering the payroll,
Why reduce life to a dollar amount per day?
And why let the world think this is the American way?
Your uneaten greens are a feast for some, you say,
Survival and living are concepts you can't equate.

Quality or quantity, quality or quantity,
Quality or quantity: Don’t tell me they're the same!

Quality or quantity, quality or quantity,
Quality or quantity: A choice you have to make.

WALK AWAY
(Brett Gurewitz)
Shut off the TV and peel off those sunday gloves,
And I’ll stain the clean that you've been counting.
Old Mr. Fletcher passed by here today,
After 40 years of toil he just stood up and walked away.

Fantastic the panic that showed in his eyes,
He shrugged when I asked him about it.
He said, “young man, pay heed, listen well to what I say,
Now there comes a time for a man to walk away.”

Walk away (walk away), I'll be a parade,
And I’ll be determined that no one shall dissuade
On my way, I’ll sure take some time
To burn all the bridges that I’m leaving behind.

He passed by again and he was shivering from the cold,
I'm not sure but I think that he was trying.
He told me about the weather and something old to pay,
“But tomorrow”, he said, “I’m gonna surely walk away.”

Walk away (walk away), I’ll be a parade,
And I’ll be determined that no one shall dissuade
On my way, I’ll take my sweet time
To burn all the bridges that I'm leaving behind.

:: ‘til the next! ::