BAD RELIGION - THE PROCESS OF BELIEF - 2002

SUPERSONIC
(Brett Gurewitz)
Well, am I making haste or could it be haste is making me,
What’s time but a thing to kill or keep or buy or lose or live in.
I gotta go faster, keep up the pace,
Just to stay in the human race...

I could go supersonic, the problem's chronic.
Tell me, does life exist beyond it?
When I need to sate, I just accelerate
Into oblivion.

Into oblivion yah yah yah yah yah yah ya-ahn...

Now here I go again, everything is alien,
How does it feel to be outstripped by the pace of cultural change?
My deeds are senseless and rendered meaningless,
when measured in that vein.

I could go supersonic, the problem's chronic.
Tell me, does life exist beyond it?
When I need to sate, I just accelerate
Into oblivion.

I won’t lie, (pace setters, go getters)
It’s exciting (rat racers, forget hers)
When I try (researchers, berserkers)
To decide things. (strategies to help the workers)
I just want to live (new time saving devices)
Decently, (quick vices, short splices)
Meaningfully. (brevity, dependency)
I’m in misery. (digital efficiency)

I could go supersonic, the problem's chronic.
Tell me, does life exist beyond it?
When I need to sate, I just accelerate
Into oblivion.

Into oblivion yah yah yah yah yah yah ya-ahn..

PROVE IT
(Greg Graffin)
Hit the road in wander mode,
Inquire along the way.
Savoir faire in full despair
While living day to day,
My heart is not a cold cauldron of proof.
I don’t ever need to prove myself to you.
No!

Looking back I’m off the tracks
More times than I recognize.
Mistakes are another opportunity to refine,
My heart is not a cold cauldron of proof.
I don’t ever need to prove myself to you.

There’s no such thing as hell,
But you can make it if you try.
There might come a day
When emotion can be quantified.
But as of now there’s no proof necessary,
It’s only in your mind.

CAN’T STOP
(Brett Gurewitz)
I’m incurable, but durable, it's easy to see
Lack of restraint is a complaint of those around me.
I know that others postpone
Gratification, well, I lack that affectation.

Let’s get it right,
There’s no end in sight!

And I can’t stop
Can’t stop it
Can’t stop
C-c-c-c-c-can’t stop,
Shocking, but I just can’t stop it,
That’s right!

Uncontrollable, I’m inconsolable,
My pleasure center is the shelter for a reptile.
I hate when I gotta tolerate
Frustration, see, I lack the motivation.

Let’s set this straight,
I never wait!

And I can’t stop
Can’t stop it
Can’t stop
C-c-c-c-c-can’t stop,
Shocking, but I just can’t stop it,
That’s right!

BROKEN
(Brett Gurewitz)
She said, thanks but I’m broken.
I guess you must have misspoken.
What a laugh, I’ve never been chosen by anyone.

She was barely a teen,
Hanging out in between,
Just a part of the scene.
With mercurial smile
And incurable style,
She was only a dream.

How’s that, he didn’t know a thing about
Making love to the kind of girl you read about.

He said, I’m bound to be broken.
My Daddy bet that I’d amount to nothing.
He won’t let anybody show him anything.

He was a troubled child,
Had been down for a while,
Always kept to himself.
No she couldn’t defend,
He only wanted a friend,
Now he’s made something else.

It’s so sad, no one saw it coming,
The paper said that he hit the ground running.

Oh yeah, I know I’m not broken.
A little cracked, but still I’m not broken.
I wanna laugh, but I think that I’m choking on reality.

When the world is turning for you,
Don’t turn on me,
Who are you here to repair,
Well I don’t know what you mean.
You could never resist
Glorifying despair,
Well now it’s coming to you
And I don’t really care.

While I’m not the kind to insist,
You couldn’t have missed, we must co-exist.
So please listen to me,
There is no such thing as human debris.

Oh yeah, I know I’m not broken.
A little cracked, but that amounts to nothing.
I wanna laugh, I’m not joking.

I’m unbroken,
Oh yeah, I said I’m unbroken,
I said I’m unbroken,
A little cracked,
it’s just a token.
I’m really not broken,
What a guess, I’m unbroken.

DESTINED FOR NOTHING
(Greg Graffin)
Who do you believe can put some meaning in your life,
Meaning in your life, meaning in your life?
Who do you conceive to provide you guidance and light,
Guidance and light, guidance and light?
Are they waiting for you in the by and by?
Do you even have to try?

Headed for eternity and destined for nothing,
The future isn’t difficult to see.
It’s easy to confuse grand design with life’s repercussions,
Lament not your vanquished fantasy.
It’s only destiny.

Why do you consent to live in ignorance and fear,
Ignorance and fear, ignorance and fear?
Ancient people succumbed to it, can it happen here,
Can it happen here, can it happen here?
Does it make you suffer ‘cause you have to die?
Is it best to live a lie?

Headed for eternity and destined for nothing,
The future isn’t difficult to see.
It’s easy to confuse grand design with life’s repercussions,
Lament not your vanquished fantasy.
It’s only destiny.

Why can’t you see?
There ain’t no destiny.
For you and me,
There ain’t no destiny.
(Why can't you see?) Why can’t you see?
(No destiny) (There aint no destiny) There ain’t no destiny.
(Why can’t you see?) For you and me,
(No destiny) (There ain’t no destiny) There ain’t no destiny!

Headed for eternity and destined for nothing,
The future isn’t difficult to see.
It’s easy to confuse grand design with life’s repercussions,
Lament not your vanquished fantasy.
It’s only destiny.

MATERIALIST
(Greg Graffin)
You’re obsessed and distressed
‘Cause you can’t make any sense of the ludicrous nonsense
And incipient senescence
That will deem your common sense useless.
This ain’t no recess!

I want to believe in you, but my plan keeps falling through,
I know I have to face the harshness, grin and bear the truth,
And I have to walk this mile in my own shoes.
(But I’m no fool!)

I’m materialist,
A full-blown realist, (Physical theorist)
And I guess I’m full of doubt,
So I’m prone to hear you out and refuse.
I’m materialist,
There ain’t no fear in this,
It’s there for all to see, so don’t talk of hidden mystery with me...

Mind over matter, it really don’t matter
If the street’s idle chatter turns your heart strings to tatters.
Flatter hopes don't flatter and soul batter won’t congeal to mend
A life that is shattered into shards.
Was it in the cards?

The process of belief is an elixir when you're weak,
I must confess, at times I indulge it on the sneak,
But generally my outlook's not so bleak.
(And I’m not meek!)

I’m materialist,
Call me a humanist,
And I guess I’m full of doubt,
So I’m prone to hear you out and refuse.
I’m materialist,
There ain’t no fear in this,
It’s for all to see, so don’t talk of hidden mysteries with me...

Like Rome under Nero, our future’s one big zero,
Recycling the past to meet immediate needs.
And through it all we amble forth and persevere and climb
Our mountains of regrets to sow our seeds!

I’m materialist,
I’m materialist,
I’m materialist,
I’m materialist. (hold)

KYOTO NOW!
(Greg Graffin)
It’s a matter of prescience,
No, not the science fiction kind.
It’s all about ignorance,
And greed and miracles for the blind.
The media parading, disjointed politics
Founded on petrochemical plunder,
And we’re its hostages.

If you stand to reason, you're in the game,
The rules might be elusive, but our pieces are the same.
And you know if one goes down we all go down as well,
The balance is precarious as anyone can tell,
This world’s going to hell.

Don’t allow
This mythologic hopeful monster to exact its price.
Kyoto now!
We can’t do nothing and think someone else will make it right.

You might not think it matters now, but what if you are wrong?
You might not think there’s any wisdom in a fucked up punk rock song.
But the way it is cannot persist for long,
A brutal sun is rising on a sick horizon.

It’s in the way we live our lives,
Exactly like the double-edge of a cold familiar knife.
And supremacy weighs heavy on the day,
It’s never really what you own, but what you threw away.
And how much did you pay?

Don’t allow
This mythologic hopeful monster to exact its price.
Kyoto now!
We can’t do nothing and think someone else will make it right.

In your dreams
You saw a steady state a bounty for eternity.
Silent screams
But now the wisdom that sustained us is in full retreat.

Don’t allow
This mythologic hopeful monster isn’t worth the risk.
Kyoto now!
We can’t have vision for the future if it can’t be fixed.

Alien
We need a fresh and new religion to run our lives.
Hand in hand
The arid torpor of inaction will be our demise.

Kyoto now!

SORROW
(Brett Gurewitz)
Father, can you hear me?
How have I let you down?
I curse the day that I was born
And all the sorrow in this world.

Let me take you to the herding ground
Where all good men are trampled down,
Just to settle a bet that could not be won
Between a prideful father and his son.

Will you guide me now, for I can’t see
A reason for the suffering and this long misery.
What if every living soul could be upright and strong?

Well, then I do imagine...
There will be sorrow,
Yeah, there will be sorrow,
And there will be sorrow no more.

When all soldiers lay their weapons down
Or when all kings and all queens relinquish their crowns
Or when the only true messiah rescues us from ourselves.

It’s easy to imagine
There will be sorrow,
Yeah, there will be sorrow,
And there will be sorrow no more.

There will be sorrow,
And there will be sorrow,
And there will be sorrow no more.

Yeah there will be sorrow,
Yeah there will be sorrow,
And there will be sorrow no more.

EPIPHANY
(Greg Graffin)
A new age of reason,
Brain treason to trick the mind.
What good is searching
If nothing’s there to find?
We arrive at this place
Of no return, my brothers,
Only to discover that our minds have led us away
So far from the painful truth
Of who we are.

What’s right is wrong,
What’s come has gone,
What’s clear and pure is not so sure.
(It came to me.)
All promises become a lie,
All that’s benign corrupts in time,
(The fallacy)
Of Epiphany.

Come forth, bear witness,
See the profit from your loss.
Beg for forgiveness
Only after you tally the cost.
We arrive at this place
Of no return, my sisters,
Only to discover that our values ran us aground
On the shoal in the sea of what
We could be.

What’s right is wrong,
What’s come has gone,
What’s clear and pure is not so sure.
(It came to me.)
All promises become a lie,
All that’s benign corrupts in time,
(The fallacy)
Of Epiphany.

If it’s real for me, do I have to prove it to you?
Why do revelations fade to cold blue untruths?
It’s oh so relative,
Subservient in total to one’s perspective.

What’s right is wrong,
What’s come has gone,
What’s clear and pure is not so sure.
(It came to me.)
All promises become a lie,
All that’s benign corrupts in time,
(Mountains don’t stand the test of time)
(The fallacy)
Of Epiphany.

EVANGELINE
(Brett Gurewitz)
She came from Heaven, well, there’s no point belaboring that,
I’ve seen some trouble and I must admit that I’m in demand.
I confront rejection with magnetic good intentions and yet,
Hey Jack, get back, in fact, don't do that.

I act sharp but feel uncertain
‘Cause next time it could be curtains.

Evangeline,
Conspirator so fine,
Lend me your faith because mine is broken.
Compared to mine,
What is your crime, Evangeline?

Now just to be certain, let’s be sure to set the record straight,
I could use an angel, but I don’t intend to split up the take.
Never go for treason, but I got reasons that don’t warrant debate,
My act's intact and in fact, you’re not all that.

You act sure but you’re uncertain
‘Cause next time it could be curtains.

Evangeline,
Conspirator so fine,
Lend me your faith because mine is broken.
Compared to mine,
What is your crime, Evangeline?

Well, there’s no use turning back.
It’s already much too late
When the house is burning.

Evangeline,
Conspirator so fine,
Lend me your faith because mine is broken.
Compared to mine,
What is your crime, Evangeline?

THE DEFENSE
(Brett Gurewitz)
Nothing comes easier than madness in the world today,
Mass paranoia is a mode, not a malady.
Yeah, I’d like to watch a thousand cable channels but there's nothing on,
And my high speed connection’s monitored daily by the Pentagon.

These things are seldom what they seem,
I'm not inclined to enjoy my dreams...

(Won’t go away...)

(No peace) No peace, (no friends) no friends,
(We trace) We trace the mortal edge (with no defense)
To state the obvious: this world is perilous for us.

No sense (no sense), no guide (no guide),
Ain’t it beautiful to be alive? (Yeah, right!)
I won’t resign before the struggle ends,
So I’ll construct a sound defense.

We are the prey and culture is the predator,
I’m running out of time where conditions are positional.
Shadows of a doubt cast reluctance and depravity,
There’s got to be a way to overcome this grim reality.

Is there an option left for me?
I’m not immune to despondency...

(There’s no way...)

(No peace) No peace, (no friends) no friends,
(We trace) We trace the mortal edge (with no defense)
To state the obvious: this world is perilous for us.

No sense (no sense), no guide (no guide),
Ain’t it beautiful to be alive? (Yeah, right!)
I won’t resign before the struggle ends,
So I’ll construct a sound defense.

There’s a signpost on the corner
And it keeps everybody safe,
We were all made in the shade.
And your mother’s in the kitchen
Where she’s patching all the cracks in the wall,
We never had a care in the world.

(No shade) Too much to sacrifice, (no light) it’s hard to recognize,
(Just black) Just a compromise (and white) obscuring deadly alibies,
(My plans) It’s combinational, (and designs) the pressure so intense,
So I’ll construct this sound defense.

(No way) Nothing’s plainer than the madness in the world today,
(No sign) I must conceal myself and steal myself and break away.
(No grace) I seek initiatives in matters that are black and white,
(No sense) So I’ll construct a sound defense.

THE LIE
(Greg Graffin)
How do you know what you can be
If you can’t see where you are going?
What breaks the silence, misery
Can make you see where you belong.
It’s a dangerous stage, but the show must go on.

Why do you lie, why do you lie?
Would you betray your soul?
Why do you lie, why do you lie?
Don’t let your weakness show.
You just might be the last to know.

Freedom is such a loaded word,
So full of hurt and such aplomb.
Loneliness saunters in its breeze,
Like a disease it drags along.
The time of your life can’t be had for a song.

Why do you lie, why do you lie?
Would you betray your soul?
Why do you lie, why do you lie?
Don’t let your weakness show.
You just might be the last to know.

Why do you lie, why do you lie?
Would you betray your soul?
Why do you lie, why do you lie?
Don't let your weakness show.

Why do you lie, why do you lie?
Only the meek follow.
Why do you lie, why do you lie?
Trample the fear below.
You just might be the last to know.

YOU DON’T BELONG
(Brett Gurewitz)
Hey, you,
Is there something worth aspiring to?
And can it be found in a record store?
Well, it’s not there anymore.
Just think of all the things we did,
We were different
Just like all the other kids.

Missy was a teen blue video star,
Tom took his life in his mother’s car.
Milo went to college but you knew about that,
Rodney played our record,
GG started riots,
Laurie was always quiet.
She was battling depression.

Hey, you,
Is there something worth belonging to?
And can I pick it up for a song
Or a diploma or a worthy cause?
Well let me tell you that there’s nothing wrong,
It’s just that ones like us will never belong.

Jack wore a skirt, but he knew how to scrap,
Billy went to county on a class one possession.
Wendy went to school while her daddy shot smack,
Eugene kept a list,
Mugger was security,
Mary, she kept her purity.
We were all in it together.

Yellowed postcards on the wall
Serve to cover up a blankness after all,
So I will carry them along
Like a song when I'm gone, yeah.

Hey, you,
Is there something worth belonging to?
You know we've been here all along
Like a confederacy of the wrong.
And I confess it could be prejudice
But to you I dedicate this song,
Yeah to you.

BORED AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS
(Greg Graffin)
With nothing better to do,
No one to come home to,
I woefully conclude
To take it out on you.

I’m bored to the extreme,
This world of foolish dreams.
Disillusion,
I am not who I seem to be.

Yeah sure I might do harm
And bear my right to arm,
Retribution,
If only someone would listen to me.
Listen to me,
Listen to me,
Listen to me,
Listen to me.

A room, an empty shelf,
A book on mental health,
I look for inner wealth,
By punishing myself.

I’m bored to the extreme,
This world of foolish dreams.
Disillusion,
I am not who I seem to be.

Yeah sure I might do harm
And bear my right to arm,
Retribution,
If only someone would listen to me.
Listen to me,
Listen to me,
Listen to me,
Listen to me.

SHATTERED FAITH
[available on Australian and Japanese version and “Broken” single]
The scientist purported that there ain’t no purpose
And the theologian told me that it’s all been designed
And I’m trying to maintain objectivity.
The world won’t illuminate what really matters,
And I’m an imperfect mortal meaning extractor
Processing the complexity.

Born of the earth, (Are we blind?)
We weren’t given a choice. (There’s no way)
What about free will? (What we have)
Do we have a voice? (Is shattered faith)
See them run in place (Here and now)
In the human rat race, (No reward)
So much dead weight (No debate)
To our disgrace. (Shattered faith)
Life begins when you accept your fate.

Paralysis from forces raging out of control until
My confidence and will are at an all-time low,
Just directionless wandering.
Eternal life, eternal truth, eternal secrets,
Isolated hopes and hypotheses just
Leave me feeling so hungry.

Born of the earth, (Are we blind?)
We weren’t given a choice. (There’s no way)
What about free will? (What we have)
Do we have a voice? (Is shattered faith)
See them run in place (Here and now)
In the human rat race, (No reward)
So much dead weight (No debate)
To our disgrace. (Shattered faith)
Life begins when you accept your fate.

Right or wrong, the main criterion is what you do and not what you say,
The roads you take, the friends you make and those you throw away.
The method is a simple synthesis of the past and present state,
You never lose if the path you choose is one you can easily navigate.

I had a dream, light and carefree, but now there’s doubt and gravity.
But I won’t run in place (Are we blind?)
In the human rat race. (There’s no way)
I can set the pace (What we have)
And accept my fate. (Is shattered faith)
Shattered faith, (Here and now)
Shattered faith, (No reward)
The part of me (No debate)
I can’t erase. (Shattered faith)