The Slaughterhouse Chorus – Demo
Guns and Cattle
I can see for miles down the thruway
Long Island bound, via St Mark’s Place
Bright Texaco lights in the rearview
will slowly fade out into space
Take the L Train to Brooklyn
and a front row seat at the reunion show
but now I think its time to go
I’m sinking in the crowd
We’re all paying customers now
I’ve been forgetting all my stories
Traded recklessness in for routine
Sang those songs wrong for the last time
An era ends in one long drunken scream
We’re leaving New York City
Hangovers are starting to set in
For every funeral there’s a homecoming
I’m sinking in the crowd
We’re all paying customers now
And the music’s way too fucking loud
Yeah, we’re all paying customers now
You’re No Good
Jesse Fuller / Bob Dylan, 1961
Peas and Beans
I made my peace with effigies
left swinging from the beams
They looked the part and paid the price
but now the mob’s moved on to bigger things
Tie a yellow rope ’round the old oak tree
while the senators get high
With a burning cross to light the stage
politicians face the crowd and lie
Now the mayor’s singing karaoke
at a golf course bar uptown
Glasses clink to the police chief
but the park echoes with a sadder sound
While he murders Frank Sinatra
full of free scotch on the rocks
somebody’s sleeping in the streets
through another round of shots
No cause is heaven-sent
Birds shit on the monuments
All statues crumble to dust
Why can’t we just come clean
we see what we want to believe
not what’s right in front of us
The signs along the righteous path
have long since faded away
God’s sleeping in on Sunday morning
getting by on severance pay
I saw Jesus Christ last night staring at me
through my window pane
but his sunken cheeks and junkie eyes
made me turn away afraid
On an all night drive from wrong to right
prophets fight to stay awake
Now the hand that bled to salvage man
only do the strung-out shake
Do you believe in conspiracy or coincidence?
Did you mistake rank for relevance
We only get what we ask for (and nothing more)
In the monopoly of democracy (god bless)
did you put your faith in hypocrisy? (this mess)
The sun rises again in New York (I love New York)
Let’s Get Invisible
We gave up Eden all over again
Sacrificed all advice to the world’s oldest sin
The pretense was shed
The old gods are dead
Blood stains faithful hands across the divide
We cannibalize along party lines
All facts are first drafts for playwrights to revise
The last act was staged
on the world’s front page
We’ll blacklist the actors for life
So I’m setting up camp on a shopping mall roof
The sun never seemed so damn bright
We’ll drink coffee in Huesca tomorrow
but Barcelona’s burning tonight
Socialists are waiting tables for tips
The food lines are full of the rich “slumming it”
When everything’s up for grabs
we want whatever we don’t have
and we all end up begging for change
We traded in our revolution
for a civil war
And I’m still on the roof of the Regal 18
Old comrades clear in the sights
We’ll drink whiskey in DC tomorrow
but Eagle Street is burning tonight
God and Country
I’ve spent most of my life in a middle class suburb
Being cared for and protected by my loving Mom and Dad
Raised and educated to excel in our society
Work hard and play your part and earn the life you want to have
Since I’ve been on my own I’ve come to one major conclusion
as I schemed and scrambled for my piece of the pie
that working hard and playing your part in this brave new world
will only earn you barely getting by
I thought of going back to school because my co-workers are all depressed
The owners of the world put them on credit to survive
But I need a diploma like 4 years in a coma
with monthly payments on the other side
So I’ll set my wallet on fire and I’ll move into the hills
I’d rather work for my own sustenance than just to pay the bills
Let the system crash and burn, sinking the guilty
in a sea of everything they thought they’d earned
A dear friend of mine gave me a book some years ago
Said “Man was born free and everywhere he is in chains”
Spent years hating society until I realized
the cage we’re trapped inside oftentimes is our own brains
On my travels I’ve met characters too real for any story
My experience has shown the truth of government and God
It’s that I need a government as much as they want my dissent
and God is something simply found inside
I’ll set my wallet on fire and I’ll move into the hills
I’d rather work for my own sustenance than just to pay the bills
Let the system crash and burn, yeah I’ll be ready
In a brand new life I know I’ve surely earned
