BAD RELIGION - SUFFER - 1988

(YOU ARE) THE GOVERNMENT
(Greg Graffin)
Hey sit down and listen and they’ll tell you when you're wrong.
Eradicate but vindicate as “progress” creeps along.
Puritan work ethic maintains its subconscious edge
As Old Glory maintains your consciousness.

There’s a loser in the house, and a puppet on a stool,
And a crowded way of life, and a black reflecting pool,
And as the people bend, the moral fabric dies,
The country can’t pretend to ignore its people's cries.

You are the government. You are jurisprudence.
You are the volition. You are jurisdiction.
And I make a difference too.

1.000 MORE FOOLS(Brett Gurewitz)
I heard them say that the meek shall reign on earth,
Phantasmal myriads of sane bucolic birth.
I've seen the rapture in a starving baby’s eyes,
Inchoate beatitude, the Lord of the Flies.

So what does it mean when your mind starts to stray?
Kaleidoscoping images of love on the way.
Brother you’d better get down on your knees and pay.
1000 more fools are being born every fucking day.

They try to tell me that the lamb is on the way,
With microwave transmissions they bombard us every day.
The masses are obsequious, contented in their sleep.
The vortex of their minds ensconsed within the murky deep.

So what does it mean when your mind starts to stray?
Kaleidoscoping images of love on the way.
Brother you'd better get down on your knees and pay.
1000 more fools are being born every fucking day.

Tell me can the hateful chain be broken?
Production and consumption define our hollow lives.
Avarice has led us ‘cross the ocean,
Toward a land that’s better, much more bountiful and wide.

When will mankind finally come to realize
His surfeit has become his demise?
How much is enough to kill yourself?
That quantity is known today, as we blow ourselves away.

Tell me is there anything so sure?
Rapacity, tenacity, capacity for more!
Like a dog that feeds until he suffers,
The infirmity of man is brought on by his selfish cure.
When will mankind finally come to realize
His surfeit has become his demise?
How much is enough to kill yourself?
That quantity is known today, as we blow ourselves away.

WHEN?
(Greg Graffin)
I’ve seen a lot of things in five years,
I struggle just to hold back the tears,
But every-fucking-where I go, I see the pathos that I know
Will spell the termination of us all.

Someone’s got to tell me, do you see
That everything around you has a hidden tragedy?
Seeds of happiness have never found a place to grow,
And our generation doesn't know.

When, when, when will you try
To change the logarithmic pace of kissing things goodbye?
When, when, when will you know
That human life is so short, and death is oh-so-slow?

I’ve tried to make things make sense, but I can’t,
I’m happy just to watch them all and laugh.
And if you think you’ve got it made,
Just revel in your selfish ways,
‘Cause when the world stops turning, so will you!
When, when, when will you try
to change the logarithmic pace of kissing things goodbye?
When, when, when will you know
That human life is so short, and death is oh-so-slow?

GIVE YOU NOTHING
(Greg Graffin, Brett Gurewitz)
Hey, everybody's looking but they never can see,
All the angst, corruption and the dishonesty.
Think about the times and places you’ve never known,
You're a man-swarm atom and yet you’re alone,
So I give you me, I give you nothing!
I give you me, I give you nothing!

So you got a place that you can call all your own,
But you make a habit of carrying the stone.
Look around and ask someone if you are alive,
You’re a sidewalk cipher speaking prionic jive,
So I give you me, I give you nothing!
I give you me, I give you nothing!

Respectable, despicable, it seems all the same.
Now we realize that we have nothing to say.
If your reserve is weak, audacity complete.
Ask yourself again, “Do I deserve much from them?”
No!

Hey, everybody's looking but they never can see,
All the angst, corruption and the dishonesty.
Look around and ask someone if you are alive,
You’re a sidewalk cipher speaking prionic jive,
So I give you me, I give you nothing!
I said I give you me, I give you nothing!

LAND OF COMPETITION
(Greg Graffin)
See there’s a girl who’s afraid of the world so she stays at home.
Next there’s a boy who seems so lost in his joy, he’s all alone.
The camera’s on them, they're in the land of competition.
Southern California air feeds them.
And they know they are best ‘cuz of the way they are dressed,
But you can bet you are not welcome in their home.

See there’s a girl who sits and watches the world from her blue screen.
Also a boy who truly wants to destroy his hometown scene.
They both want to travel to the land of competition.
Southern California will destroy them,
And they won’t be the best, they’ll be the poseurs who dress
Like the plastic idiots who they copy.

Tell me what do you need to make you happy? Indeed, is it out of your reach?
Beware of number one, see all the damage it has done, there are so few of them.
You won’t find too many in the land of competition.
Southern California doesn’t breed them.
If you just want the best turn to yourself for the rest
And forget about the ones who “have it all.”
Be careful of the ones who “have it all.”
Be careful of the ones who “have it all.”
Forget about the ones who “have it all.”

FORBIDDEN BEAT
(Greg Graffin, Brett Gurewitz)
There was a boy who had too many toys and an ache inside of his bones.
He sought extrication through chemical vocation and now he answers to Jones.

It’s deadly and alluring, the sound of pounding heat,
Enslaving all who dare succumb to the temptations of the forbidden beat.

Thinking today of what I want to say, thinking of inhibition and vice.
What they call straight I do relegate as I cautiously saltate along.

It’s deadly and alluring, the sound of pounding heat,
Enslaving all who dare succumb to the temptations of the forbidden beat.

It thunders away at first light of each day and the simpleton lifestyle evolves
But soon enters dusk as the last surrey rusts and a new day upon us results.
It's deadly and alluring, the sound of pounding heat,
Enslaving all who dare succumb to the temptations of the forbidden beat.
Forbidden Beat

BEST FOR YOU
(Greg Graffin)
Above us lay the burdens, below us lay the truth.
We’re somewhere in the middle, and we’re all discontent too.
Is someone watching over you?
Inside they know what’s best for you.

Judgement’s not tomorrow, its today (yes now it’s here).
But no it isn’t Jesus, take a look at all your peers.
They’re all looking down on you.
Inside they know what’s best for you...
Everybody knows what’s best for you!

SUFFER(Greg Graffin, Brett Gurewitz)
Did you ever see the concrete stares of everyday?
The lunatic, the hypocrite, are all lost in the fray.
Can’t you see their lives are just like yours?

An unturned stone, an undiscovered
Door leading to the gift of hope renewed, eternity for you.
The masses of humanity have always had to suffer.

The businessman whose master plan controls the world each day
Is blind to indications of his species’ slow decay.
Can’t you see his life is just like yours?

An unturned stone, an undiscovered
Door leading to the gift of hope renewed, eternity for you.
The masses of humanity have always had to suffer.

People blow their minds (they choose to resign)
This deformed society is part of the design.
It’ll never go away (it’s in the cards that way).
The masses of humanity have always, always had to suffer!
A door leading to the gift of hope renewed, eternity for you.
The masses of humanity, still clinging to their dignity,
The masses of humanity will always have to suffer.
Always have to suffer.

DELIRIUM OF DISORDER(Brett Gurewitz)
Life is the sieve through which my anarchy strains,
Resolving itself into works.
Chaos is the score upon which reality is written:
A timeless, swirling, gyroscopic horde.

Delirium... delirium... of disorder.

Yeah, I am just an atom in an ectoplasmic sea,
Without direction or a reason to exist.
The anechoic nebula rotating in my brain
Is persuading me contritely to persist.
Delirium of disorder. Delirium of disorder.

PART II (THE NUMBERS GAME) (Brett Gurewitz)
(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
It’s superficial progress, they call it liberation.
With opiates of silicon, Big Brother schemes to rule the nation.
We're one nation under God, we stand above the rest;
With mighty high technology, we’re never second best.
Our specialty is infiltration!
Prepare yourself for subjugation,
Victory through domination.

(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
The trepidatious throngs all fear the big eye in the sky.
The government observes them with their own electric eye.
We’re one nation under God, we stand above the rest;
With mighty high technology, we’re never second best.
Our specialty is infiltration!
Prepare yourself for subjugation.

Automatons, illiterates, and indigents of every shape and size
Don’t stop but aid this cruel crusade, participate in their own demise.
We're one nation under God, we stand above the rest;
With mighty high technology, we’re never second best.
Our specialty is infiltration!
So pack your bags you third-world nation,
Victory through domination.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?
(Greg Graffin)
So you waste another day getting older and gray in the head,
And you're hearing lots of stories ‘bout the happy times you have ahead.
There are other folks in power so you kick back and get farther behind,
And although the world rotates itself the only thing you twist is your mind.

You see, the world's falling apart at the rifts,
And surprisingly, the leaders can’t make any sense of it.
You mean nothing to the world, we’re all someone else’s fool,
But oh, what can you do?

“Yeah you waste your time with losers if you get stuck in a rock-n-roll band.”
Do you find it more rewarding to compete with morons throughout this land?
They seem to be in power so I’ll kick back and get farther behind.
And I watch them as they fuck up every good thing on this earth with their “minds.”

You see, the world’s falling apart at the rifts,
And surprisingly, the leaders can’t make any sense of it.
You mean nothing to the world, we're all someone else’s fool,
But oh, what can you do?

Yeah you waste another day getting older and gray in the head,
And we're hearing lots of stories ‘bout the happy times we have ahead.
The morons are in power so we kick back and get farther behind,
And we watch them as they fuck up every good thing on this earth with their “minds.”
You see, the world’s falling apart at the rifts,
And surprisingly, the leaders can’t make any sense of it.
We mean nothing to the world, we’re all someone else’s fool,
But oh, what can you do?
I said, oh, what can you do?
(Go!)

DO WHAT YOU WANT
(Brett Gurewitz)
Hey do what you want, but don't do it around me.
Idleness and dissipation breed apathy.
I sit on my ass all goddamn day,
A misanthropic anthropoid with nothing to
Say what you must, do all you can,
Break all the fucking rules and
Go to Hell with Superman and
Die like a champion, yeah hey!
Hey I don’t know if the billions will survive,
But I’ll believe in God when 1 and 1 are 5.
My moniker is man and I’m rotten to the core.
I’ll tear down the building just to pass through the door.
So do what you must, do all you can,
Break all the fucking rules and
Go to Hell with Superman and
Die like a champion, yeah hey!

PART IV (THE INDEX FOSSIL) (Greg Graffin)
We’re widespread and well fed,
The earth’s rotating fate is in our head, oh yeah.
We’re dominant and prominent,
And all our deities omnipotent, oh yeah.

And immortality’s in our mastermind,
And we destroy everything we can find.
And tomorrow when the human clock stops and the world stops ticking,
We’ll be an index fossil buried in our own debris.

We’re listless, promiscuous,
And life to us is either hit or miss, oh yeah.
We're savoir faire and debonaire
And things we do are done with pride and care, oh yeah.

And immortality’s in our mastermind,
And we destroy everything that we find.
And tomorrow when the human clock stops and the world stops ticking,
We’ll be an index fossil buried in our own debris.

See, immortality’s in our mastermind,
And we destroy everything that we find.
And tomorrow when the human clock stops and the world stops ticking,
We’ll be an index fossil buried in our own debris.
In our own debris.

PESSIMISTIC LINES
(Greg Graffin)
So here we are again to experience the bitter, scalding end
And we’re the only ones who can perceive it.
But others sing of beauty and the story that’s unfolded
As one that deserves praise and ritual.

My pessimistic lines, your superstitious lives,
And the modern age’s lies won’t absolve you.
And the professorial truth, and the dear clairvoyant youth,
And of course the nightly news will deceive you.
(Watch out!)

My pessimistic lines, your superstitious lives,
And the modern age’s lies won’t absolve you.
And the professorial truth, and the dear clairvoyant youth,
And of course the nightly news will deceive you.
(Let’s go!)

:: til 'the next! ::