Deck Hands and Chairs for the Band

There's pain and despair

Rain falls and clouds fill the air 

Fire flames and wars rage

Rats gettin' fat trapped in their cage

Living without a care 

like the world isn't ours to share. 

History repeating, page after page. 

It's time to open your eyes if ya dare

Time to face the nightmare

Or bury your head, say instead 

"Others troubles aren't ours to bear..." 

Stop, stare, then when ya see 

the darkness closin' in from everywhere

pull an about-face on the nightmare

Return to ya bubble

Forget the toil, turmoil,

the bodies buried 

And smokin' rubble

Double down on life 

without a trouble or care

Bury your head anywhere!

Keep flipping through ad books named

Cosmo, People, and Vanity Fair

Things fallin' apart 

while we grind out senseless music

Pretending it's art

Poppin pills to "lose it!"

Life's tough, but Molly'll soothe it

Jaws clenchin' when ya use it

500mg of Mg oughta loosen it

After she gets ya mind 

to grind with the music 

Auctions for pointless art

Insanity and vanity off the chart

The status elite doesn't come cheap

Wealthy sheep celebrating 

the ordinarily temporary contemporary 

Embarrassingly exemplary 

Of logic and reason's scarcity

Millions for a painting 

While millions die waiting 

Caught in wars raging over

Finance and trading

The world needs saving

And it's humans I'm blaming

We're reading words without meaning
and it's got the masses teeming for more

Another Hollywood war 

knocking at the door

The next feud, the next fight

All keeping reality far from sight

Something's wrong, 

but it's got us feeling right

Distraction in action as we listen to the voice of a generation
who's got nothing to say. 

Applying "genius" to money and fame
showin that fool and genius can mean the same

Feuds and disputes staged on stage

Actors and feigned rage
just selling ads on the entertainment page

Grabbing all they can before the fame fades
and empty accolades
are replaced by empty days. 

The masses in a maze
driven to a daze
by flashing lights and variations on the same
that never fail to amaze. 

Craze after craze
dancing to the same songs that we've always played. 

In time there comes a day

When the piper says it's time to pay

And what will we say 

When we've got pockets empty

With no change in the tray?

It's not that ya always 

gotta have something to say

And there's nothing wrong 

with playing just to play

But we're neck deep

In the mass of trash 

Always adding to the heap

Piling higher and higher, day after day

Just to collect from the millions willing
to pay for the rehash of noise and scrap from yesterday

And it seems as if today, 

While the ship tips and sinks

Nobody blinks or thinks

of a single thing to say

To the band and deck hands as they

continue to work and play.