BAD RELIGION - THE EMPIRE STRIKES FIRST - 2004

OVERTURE
[instrumental]
(Brett Gurewitz)

SINISTER ROUGE
(Greg Graffin)
Innocents burned alive at the stake,
Tortured and dumped in nameless graves.
Centuries waned, authority died
Scattering seeds of ancient lies.

Sinister Rouge,
Coming back for more to even the score.
Sinister Rouge,
Coming back for more to even the score.

Child molesters and Jesuits
Holding secret conference
Underneath the Pontiff's nose
And only God will ever know.

Sinister Rouge,
Coming back for more to even the score.
Sinister Rouge,
Coming back for more to even the score.

Give us this day our daily bread,
Your legacy we’ll not forget.
Lick the wounds, cleanse the land,
The modern world rejects your hands.

Sinister Rouge,
Coming back for more to even the score.
Sinister Rouge,
Coming back for more to even the score.
Sinister Rouge.
The nightmare comes in Sinister Rouge.

SOCIAL SUICIDE
(Greg Graffin)
Right now! Well, it’s finally time to face my fears,
Gonna get the hell out of here
And create a fresher atmosphere,
But the consequence is clear.

There’s a furnace set on high
And a yearning undefined,
But it’s time to turn the tide,
It’s social suicide.

Like you! Perseverance is a useless tool,
Just a patron on a ship of fools,
Feigning interest in the cast and crew
While you’ve broken every single rule.

There’s a furnace set on high
And a yearning undefined,
Now it’s time to turn the tide,
It’s social suicide.

Shadows entertain the unwashed masses,
Scholars explain their numb reactions.
I don’t even know if I can ever find truth,
But I’m sure it won’t come from following you.

There’s a furnace set on high
And a yearning undefined,
But it’s time to turn the tide,
It’s social suicide.

ATHEIST PEACE
(Greg Graffin)
Maybe it’s too late for intellectual debate,
But a residue of confusion remains.
Changing with the times and developmentally tortured minds
Are the average citizen’s sources of pain.

“Tell me what we’re fighting for.”
I don’t remember anymore,
Only temporary reprieve,
And the world might cease
If we fail to tame the beast.
From the faith that you release
Comes an atheist peace.

Political forces rent
Bitter cold winds of discontent
And the modern age emerged triumphantly.
But now it seems we’ve stalled
And it’s time to de-evolve
And relive the dark chapters of history.

“Tell me what we’re fighting for.”
No progress ever came from war,
Only a false sense of increase,
And the world won’t wait
For the truth upon a plate,
But we’re ready now to feast on an atheist peace.

ALL THERE IS
(Brett Gurewitz)
This song goes out to all the hopeless sinners
With grave allegiances so meaningless and vain,
The walking wounded in a pageant of contenders
Who balance on a rail of pain for just a pail of rain.

And everything is barely mist – blood relations and bricks.
My expression, my confession, add it up, extract a lesson
More than this, once again, like a bullet as a friend, tell me:
Can that be all there is?

In my rectory of doubt I kneel to pray like one devout
As time the great, gray dreamless sleep of a useless modern God
Erodes away each storied day, as wretched Adams with hell to pay
Contend upon a rail of pain for just a little rain.

And everything is dearly missed – blood relations and bricks
My expression, my confession, add it up, extract a lesson
More than this, once again, like a bullet as a friend, tell me:
Can that be all there is?

There’s an endless disposition and it doesn’t mean a god damn thing,
There’s space for a paper airplane race in the eye of a hurricane.

And if pigs could fly, then surely so could I,
But this pedestrian knows better than to even try.
My divinity is caught between the colors of a butterfly.

And everything is dearly missed – blood relations and bricks
My expression, my confession, add it up, extract a lesson
More than this, once again, like a bullet as a friend, tell me:
Can that be all there is?

LOS ANGELES IS BURNING
(Brett Gurewitz)
Somewhere high in the desert near a curtain of a blue
St. Anne’s skirts are billowing,
But down here in the city of limelights
The fans of Santa Ana are withering.
And you can’t deny that living is easy
If you never look behind the scenery,
It’s showtime for dry climes
And bedlam is dreaming of rain.

When the hills of Los Angeles are burning,
Palm trees are candles in the murder wind,
So many lives on the breeze,
Even the stars are ill at ease
And Los Angeles is burning.

This is not a test
Of the emergency broadcast system
When Malibu fires and radio towers
Conspire to dance again.
And I cannot believe the media Mecca,
They’re only trying to peddle reality:
Catch it on prime time, story at nine,
The whole world is going insane.

When the hills of Los Angeles are burning,
Palm trees are candles in the murder wind,
So many lives on the breeze,
Even the stars are ill at ease
And Los Angeles is burning.

A placard reads: “The end of days”.
Jacaranda boughs are bending in the haze.
More a question than a curse,
How could hell be any worse?
The flames are stunning,
The camera’s running
So take warning.

When the hills of Los Angeles are burning,
Palm trees are candles in the murder wind,
So many lives on the breeze,
Even the stars are ill at ease
And Los Angeles is burning.

LET THEM EAT WAR
(Brett Gurewitz)
There’s a prophet on a mountain
And he’s making up dinner
With long division and a riding crop.
Anybody can feel like a winner
When it’s served up piping hot.

But the people aren’t looking for a handout,
They’re America’s working corps.
Can this be what they voted for?

Let them eat war,
That’s how to ration the poor.
Let them eat war,
There’s an urgent need to feed
Declining pride.

From the force to the union shops
The war economy is making new jobs,
But the people who benefit most
Are breaking bread with their benevolent host.

You never stole from the rich to give to the poor,
All they ever gave to them was a war
And a foreign enemy to deplore.

Let them eat war,
That’s how to ration the poor.
Let them eat war,
There’s an urgent need to feed
Declining pride.

Kill ‘em and eat ‘em before they reach for their checks.
Squeeze some blue collars, make ‘em bleed from their necks.
Seize a few dollars from the people who sweat
Because it’s Freedom or Debt and they won’t question it.
At a job site the boss is God-like,
Conditioned workhorses park at a stop light,
Seasoned vets with their feet in nets
A stone’s throw away from a rock fight, but not tonight, feed ‘em death.

(Feed ‘em death) Here comes another ration
(Feed ‘em death) ‘Cuz they’re the finest in the nation,
(Feed ‘em death) When there's nothing left to feed them with
(Feed ‘em death) It's freedom or it’s death.

Let them eat war,
That’s how to ration the poor.
Let them eat war,
There’s an urgent need to feed
Declining pride.

GOD’S LOVE
(Greg Graffin)
Striking at mental apparitions
Like a drunk on a vacant street,
Silently beset by the hands of time,
Indelicate in its fury.
An aberrant “crack” as skeletons yield
To unrelenting gravity
While viruses prowl for helpless victims
Who succumb rapidly.

Tell me! Tell me where is the love
In a careless creation?
When there’s no above
There’s no justice,
Just a cause and a cure
And a bounty of suffering
It seems we all endure.
And what I’m frightened of
Is that they call it God’s love.

Twisted torment, make believe
There’s a truth and we all submit
Believe my eyes my brain replies
To all that they interpret.

Tell me! Tell me where is the love
In a careless creation?
When there’s no above
There’s no justice,
Just a cause and a cure
And a bounty of suffering
It seems we all endure.
And what I’m frightened of
Is that they call it God’s love.

I know there’s no reason for alarm,
But who needs perspective
When it comes to pain and harm?
We can change our minds,
There’s a better prize,
But first you’ve got to...

Tell me! Tell me where is the love
In a careless creation?
When there’s no above
There’s no justice,
Just a cause and a cure
And a bounty of suffering
It seems we all endure.
And what I’m frightened of
Is that they call it God’s love.
My pain is God's love.

TO ANOTHER ABYSS
(Greg Graffin)
Not long ago, and yet the image is so vague
I hesitate to label it a memory,
There was a show of local color and I felt astray
‘Cuz I had nothing to offer but insufficiency.

And you know that it’s a bitch
When you learn to scratch that itch,
A blatant fallibility,
Sooner to some, but eventually...

All gets pointed in the same direction
While the human masses and their vague conceptions
Obliterate each other with impunity,
And you wonder “What’s in this for me?”

To another abyss – to no avail,
The search is bound to fail.
To another abyss – to no avail,
So long ago I set sail.
And it chills me to the bone
That I’m so far away from home.
To another abyss.

So what should I do now?
What should I celebrate
Given finite means and a penchant to depreciate?
How can I still avow and depend upon a state
That cares nothing for my happiness, welfare or fate?

And I know I can’t explain
The commotion in my brain,
Like a terrifying reality,
Deconstructed but inadequately...

All gets pointed in the same direction
While the human masses and their vain conceptions
Obliterate each other with impunity,
And release the weight of history.

To another abyss – to no avail,
The search is bound to fail.
To another abyss – to no avail,
So long ago I set sail.
And it chills me to the bone
That I’m so far away from home.
To another abyss.

So long ago, I set sail
And I’m struggling on the way
And I’m waiting for the day (To another abyss)
And I’m looking for the way back home. (To another abyss)
(To another abyss) So far away,
(To another abyss) So far away,
(To another abyss) So far away...
(To another abyss)

THE QUICKENING
(Brett Gurewitz)
The quickening is an ephemeral thing
That only happens in the dark
Like catching lightning in a jar.
And the pain that it brings
Is just the promise of Spring.
It’s madness on the wing.
Oh, what does it mean...

To come alive?
To come alive!
To come alive!

The entering is soulful conjecturing
* Oh lost and by the wind-grieved ghost
Come back to me again.
Because the way that she bleeds
Is in the law that he reads,
Confusing words and deeds.
So what does it mean...

To come alive?
To come alive!
To come alive!

To pierce the vein of the sacred and profane,
Poor science in service of a faith,
But who will bear the mark of Cain?

To come alive?
To come alive!
To come alive!

* Look Homeward Angel from Thomas Wolfe

THE EMPIRE STRIKES FIRST
(Brett Gurewitz)
We strike first
And we're unrehearsed.
Here we go again
To stage the greatest show on heaven and earth.
Come on, get your money’s worth.

Don’t wanna live,
Don’t wanna give,
Don’t wanna be
E-M-P-I-R-E.
Don’t wanna live,
Don’t wanna be
E-M-P-I-R-E.

We’re coming on fast
And we’re built to last.
We stumbled once in 'Nam,
Now we’re glad to finally say
Those days have passed.
Tell me how long can it last?

Don’t wanna live,
Don’t wanna give,
Don’t wanna be
E-M-P-I-R-E.
Don’t wanna live,
Don’t wanna be
E-M-P-I-R-E.

We just started out,
You don’t need to be afraid,
Yeah you deserve two minutes hate.
Well, we spit and we cursed
And our bleeding hearts burst,
But even ten million souls
Marching in February couldn’t stop the worst.
Couldn’t reverse...

Don’t wanna live,
Don’t wanna give,
Don’t wanna be
E-M-P-I-R-E.
Don’t wanna live,
Don’t wanna be
E-M-P-I-R-E.

I can’t live if living is with you...

BEYOND ELECTRIC DREAMS
(Brett Gurewitz)
No one here can show you where it is but I can point to a sign
On the roof of the world without apparent design,
The frozen definition of a lunatic ambition to rise.

The air is thin, the future dim, dimension hard to find.

Up on a mountain, encased in solar rays,
Beyond electric dreams of inarticulate passion plays,
Coming down a mountain, eons have a human ring,
The conversation of impassive planets intercepted by a human being.

Ratiocination is a practicable way to derive,
An attitude or altitude and probity by which to abide
Or maybe a theophany of flaming creosote in disguise.

The air is thin, the future dim, dimension undefined.

Up on a mountain, encased in solar rays,
Beyond electric dreams of inarticulate passion plays,
Coming down a mountain, eons have a human ring,
The conversation of impassive planets intercepted by a human being.

Here glaring cold in the crystalline
Geometry of night, obscuring
Form and tracing faceless fears of
Suprahuman immensity in a
Patch of sand or a raptor’s guileless
Shivering intensity, I’m only
A visitor, an atom of atoms on a jutting
Red spattered synagogue
Of granite as it crouches literally in
Space, a frozen amoral giant
Gazing heavenward forever.

Let’s go where the raptor goes, to the mountain in a cosmic glow,
We'll have a genuine terrestrial show on a mountain – on a mountain.

Let’s scan the horizon clean for any trace of human schemes
And try to touch upon immortal themes on a mountain – on a mountain.

Up on a mountain, encased in solar rays,
Beyond electric dreams of inarticulate passion plays,
Coming down a mountain, eons have a human ring,
The conversation of impassive planets intercepted by a human being.

BOOT STAMPING ON A HUMAN FACE FOREVER
(Brett Gurewitz)
Drop dead, it doesn’t matter, she said,
It only hurts when I laugh, she said.
Sometimes, it’s never a crime
To spend the day in bed.
She made certain that the curtains were red,
To dream better by the light they would shed.
She leaned back, tilted her head
And this is what she said.

You can’t win! Think it over again,
I can’t win! Look at the trouble I’m in,
We can’t win! And we’re stuck here together,
Yeah, I hope it will last forever.

Don’t ever dare to hope, he said,
So I’ll never let down too bad.
I know there’s nowhere to go
So I’ll just stay here instead.
He knew better than to pull on a thread,
They unravel like the thoughts in his head.
He looked out, it filled him with dread
And this is what he said.

You can’t win! Think it over again,
I can’t win! Look at the trouble I’m in,
We can’t win! And we’re stuck here together,
Yeah, I hope it will last forever.

With good books and looks on their side
And hearts bursting with national pride,
They sang songs that went along for the ride
And the other side complied.
They said, “Hey, man, where do you reside?”
And “Could it be Mother Superior lied?”
And “Is it possible too many have died?”
It’s only natural to reply.

You can’t win! Think it over again,
I can’t win! Look at the trouble I’m in,
We can’t win! And we’re stuck here together,
Yeah, I hope it will last forever.

* “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face... FOREVER!”
– George Orwell, 1984

LIVE AGAIN – THE FALL OF MAN
(Greg Graffin)
The road is narrow, the horizon wide
And they say what’s waiting on the other side
Is so rewarding and the ultimate prize,
But what good is something if you can’t have it until you die?

Desperate, tenacious, clinging like a grain of sand,
Watching its foundation wash away.
Drunk with the assertions they know they can’t defend,
Confident that they might live again.

Live again! Live again!
Would you give it all up to live again?
Live again! Live again!
Would you give it all up to live again?

Temptation, revelation, you decide,
Torture shows its colors often in disguise.
Progress and purpose help us realize
We pass along a brighter faith even though it must be blind.

Desperate, tenacious, clinging like a grain of sand,
Watching its foundation wash away.
Drunk with the assertions they know they can’t defend,
Confident that they might live again.

Live again! Live again!
Would you give it all up to live again?
Live again! Live again!
Would you give it all up to live again?

THE SURFACE OF ME
[available just on Japanese version]
Oh yeah! A study of history
Reveals an unflagging appeal to mystery.
You talk about abstraction
At the top of the list,
But you might as well get pissed,
‘Cause in me the essence does not exist.
No!

Yeah yeah! You’re so shallow.
How can your romance hope to be
The veil of an ersatz human nature
That can pacify but never slept well
When there’s the pretension of living a lie?

Take me as I am, judge me for my crimes,
I can say I’ll behave freely all the time.
You can predict what I’ll say, it’s in my DNA,
But soon I’ll be a catalogue number anyway.
So say a little prayer,
Convince yourself that someone cares.
All I am is what you see.
There is nothing more than the surface of me,
There is nothing more than the surface of me!
You know?

Oh yeah! Apologies to Skinner,
But I do believe that I feel like I’m a winner
Having just discovered a long solved modal secret
Of how I always feel
So goddamn downtrodden and desperate.

Take me as I am, judge me for my crimes,
I can say I’ll behave freely all the time.
You can predict what I’ll say, it’s in my DNA,
But soon I’ll be a catalogue number anyway.
So say a little prayer,
Convince yourself that someone cares.
All I am is what you see.
There is nothing more than the surface of me,
There is nothing more than the surface of me!