A code is a rule for converting a piece of information (for example, a letter, word, phrase, or gesture) into another form or representation (one sign into another sign), not necessarily of the same type.
In communications and information processing, encoding is the process by which information from a source is converted into symbols to be communicated. Decoding is the reverse process, converting these code symbols back into information understandable by a receiver.
One reason for coding is to enable communication in places where ordinary spoken or written language is difficult or impossible. For example, semaphore, where the configuration of flags held by a signaller or the arms of a semaphore tower encodes parts of the message, typically individual letters and numbers. Another person standing a great distance away can interpret the flags and reproduce the words sent.
In information theory and computer science, a code is usually considered as an algorithm which uniquely represents symbols from some source alphabet, by encoded strings, which may be in some other target alphabet. An extension of the code for representing sequences of symbols over the source alphabet is obtained by concatenating the encoded strings.
This is a code
crack it with butter
hold it up to the mirror and read it carefully
I have a family
I have three children
I have a cat and I have a dog
but they will not speak
they are wired shut
to their straight jacket sofas
watching snow on TV
I broke their code
slid it through butter
held it up to a mirror
and read it carefully
"we love our family
they smell like mothballs
we have excellent teeth
you see it runs in the family
but we are in tears over sighs no one hears
we've not scratched our noses
in 8 million years
sketches of our plans
traced in dust on the floor
reveal human extinction
through a stuffed animal war!"
oh no! there's a Barbie doll
staring down at me from my bedroom wall
oh no! what's that sound?
she's gonna tear my eyeballs out
asleep at night approaching dreams
dolls creep up from behind and open their seams
I cracked their code
I know their plans
I hear them moving
and I hear their leader's commands:
"PULL OUT YOUR COTTONHUMANS ARE ROTTEN COVER THEIR EYES WITH YOUR FLUFFY INSIDES!"
I am touched
Not by the dirt beetle
Nor the crevice of night
But my empathy is with a star
Confiding on my shoulder
Sound travels down this hill
And the wind rolls up it
Trembling with my budding hands
That shake about my head
Curl up
Between my gnarled thighs
Dirt beetle or lost child
This time is slow and my voice
Is inaudible
Six feet deep
Under the ground; gurgling
Your palm pushes near my toe
Shake dirty curly child
Through the night grow(s)
And through the night it grows...
I think that (the) spring is five days walk from here
I'll wait through and watch it come undone
There's a frozen whisper near me
That will chuckle come daylight
Curl up
Between my gnarled thighs
Dirt beetle or lost child
This time is slow and my voice
Is inaudible
Six feet deep
In a near ditch
You tilt your head upward
And shake my bony hand
With your blackbird glove
Curl up
Between my gnarled thighs
Dirt beetle or lost child
This time is slow and my voice
Is inaudible
Six feet deep
Brittle air for blue lungs
Shuttle fare for radiant tongues
Untie your sleeping sores to wake up scratching
Rejecting death reign in a moment of bewilderment
Redeem (redeem)
Demand (demand)
Contort (contort)
Reality (reality)
Basement and backyard skymachine bleachers
A corroded drone is all that is left
Abate my eyes with bear traps and snares
The fear pounds in your chest
Like claustrophobic demons
Brittle air for blue lungs
Shuttle fare for radiant tongues
Untie your sleeping sores to wake up scratching
Rejecting death reign in a moment of bewilderment
And the fear pounds in your chest
Like claustrophobic demons
The mummified trauma of daylight delusions
Dilapidated posture dazzled by filth
Baking soda smile - Jackknife in the passenger seat
Sit back and watch retired ambitions croak
Redeem
Demand
It hits like a kick in the gut
Smashed through the floor
To find (out) what I was looking for
Rusty brain matter floating in rainwater
Redeem (redeem)
Demand (demand)
Contort (contort)
Reality (reality)
Fascination is wearing thin
Hag-ridden abscessed teeth of hope
The wrecking ball toll of crushed coal dreams
Decoding the pearls in the whirlwind
Disposable antidotes as fragmental cutthroats
These plastic superhero suits are starting to choke
Choke choke choke...
Redeem (redeem)
Demand (demand)
Contort (contort)
Reality (reality)
Devoured heavens that haul the shores of my thought
In the empire of night I'm a victim of an audible heart
The building's nuclear gleam
Cruel houses of lost prayers
In temples of a nervous breakdown
I tread the boards of a dream
I kiss the mouths of dust
Radium
A spiral of human continuum
Radium
Occurs in the alkaline of imagination
Radium
Radium
The corrugated emptiness of magnetic lonely locusts
That catch my breath
Like daydreams of chattering aspens
At an opulent hospice
We'll nurse our hearts
From the fallout of sunsets
Radium
A spiral of human continuum
Radium
Occurs in the alkaline of imagination
Radium
Radium
Sometimes startled by our own darkness
Death has neither an end or a beginning
I must be dreaming, because I need myths and sickness...
A father must feather his followers and feelings...
To manufacture and create nuclear fusion in the minds or radiation therapists
I can't think anymore
I can't dream anymore
I can't love (you) anymore
Heaven-sent sunset red
Spin in the evening under the windowsill
Hawthorn valley floor
Rain beaded grass
Soft breath, motionless and wet
Empty jaws of the rivers maw
A backwards memory
Like Arabic writing
Tears of diamonds
Vanish into the gardens
I remember once when I was young
Something was wrong
Under an old fence
The unlit labyrinth of nonsense
Unformed nouns and vowels
Drip into the floor
Like insects from the nest of my skull
The light looked different in those days
As if an idea could imagine for itself
And in the afternoon
We all took off our skin
And set sail for Neptune
Using our flesh for a sail
The drizzle of wheels in the heat
Summer is the cruelest city of deceit
That pains that you claim will reclaim you
That gains that you gain will regain you
I'm making ghosts out of clay
To scare my past away
Street lamps stoop and kiss the street
Cover their eyes in the blazing heat
Turn the night against the sky
Fold it through the moon
The light slides down the reptile tiles
And gently lie
Run you through the streets of night
Run from the sound of laughing
Knock you out and hold you down
I hear brass dogs barking
Break your head against the wall
Strike the night it's blinding
The stars are sharp the moon rotates
It doesn't glide it's grinding
I've wasted time within your mind
Time that I came clean
Show this stallion city buck
And trample my subversion dream
What's it like to shout your name
Ten thousand voices asking?
I try to speak it but I hear
The brass dogs barking near
Down around the back
Stand up pushed down
Backs against the wall
Pushed over pulled back
In the alley taken behind
Like a puck on your back
That turns as you turn
Turning with you
Like an imp on your back
That titters as you turn
Worming into you
Trample city flay your hooves
Call us home
Our city, our city, our city
Our city breeds a twisted creed
Corpuscular creatures seethe
Try to sleep then just be silent
Coast the edge of dreams
I'll curl around you but I hear
The brass dogs barking near
I'll curl around you but I hear
The brass dogs barking near
Trample city flay your hooves
Call us home
Our city, our city, our city
Down around the back
Stand up pushed down
Backs against the wall
Pushed over pulled back
In the alley taken behind
Like a puck on your back
That turns as you turn
Turning with you
Like an imp on your back
That titters as you turn
Worming into you
Tin cans skitter the ground
Mimic the sound
Of brass dogs barking
The brass dogs are barking...
The brass dogs are barking...
We are lost within the flesh
Led by the sloping of an inner arm
No face outside these eyes
No past outside tonight
We are as we paint us
A vision installed
In many ways stunned
To say it would be to sing
As green meteors swim
Gently up to him
Mirrored surfaces
Who is within them?
Hands in water peel my skin
My teeth and my hair
My eyes move like lunar seas
The mirror moves and I jump in
To catch my breath under the sky
Wash scars and use this eye
Roll it from the navel to the pubis
Circumnavigate (the) wet hip
Turn these bodies around
Dash them on the shore
Watch their slender centres
Spark and burst
And slide their tattered skin
Between barnacles and limpid
...And remember what still
Grows and thrives
An enigma in brine
Past this daily decreasing horizon
I am image I
Wash scars and use this eye
Roll it from the navel to the pubis
Circumnavigate (the) wet hip
Turn these bodies around
Dash them on the shore
Watch their slender centres
Spark and burst
And slide their tattered skin
Between barnacles and limpid
This is where they want to lie
To love the winds and the tides
Washed in weeping
Aeons of ashes
Pull a curtain
Across the sky
Cadavers crawling
Like creatures intrigued
Living like fossils
In pools of kerosene
Getting to know well
The geology of hell
Mapping the porous moon-
Leprous dermis of life
Terror and dread
Sick to the teeth
Perish the thought
Die or dream
Set it all ablaze
Set the world in flames
Tired souls hunched in familiar bricks
Drowned in sleeping sickness silver skeleton palace of mist
Heart-shaped carnival of sores locked up in cupboard doors
Looking up at the starry sky won't make your scarred life
Light up bright
A thirst for questions have their black reply --
Hide in cloud-mouthed skyscraper
Haven for no thoughts but mine
A muscular memory of February
When proud absence left me
(We are alone amongst millions...)
Subway stations filled with forced equations for my earth to burst
The retina is so hungry I could eat a hearse
Peeling adverts perfumed with roman numerals
As we shuffle off to our jobs like funerals
Drawn by wounds to the throat of ghosts
(We) lost our way back to the vault of youth
Codes forged in my minerals when the earth grew old
Love's labours lost back when lives for lies were sold (our lives were sold)
Kodak coloured souvenirs
From a furnished furnace of fears
For learning to be mad
Is the poverty of happiness
And I know that it is clear
That I'm not here
In this cloud-formed invisible asylum of tears
I am ready to face my fears
As my consciousness disappears
To the internal sanctuary of seers
Where the clouds last for years and years
"I placed a blue death mask there in my book of hours
That those who dream of an earthly paradise may read it as men"
And I know that it is clear
That I'm not here
In this cloud-formed invisible asylum of tears
I am ready to face my fears
As my consciousness disappears
To the internal sanctuary of seers
Where the clouds last for years and years
He hangs his flyers on the wall, religiously, his efforts so small
It doesn't matter even though
Punk rock is his life he has got nothing to show for it
He sits stuck in a daydream, everything sucks, the music the scene
The people, his friends, everything has changed
He battles on remaining the same
[Chorus:]
Here's to you, who battle through
Battle on, battle on! (2x)
He watched it rise, he watched it fall
Stabbed in the back by the ones he used to call his friends, the trends
Must have brainwashed their minds
His life has gone full circle, his struggle forged and refined
Defined his crime he stood true, with his heart while the others
Dropped their fist, he fought so it wouldn't fall apart
Oh this battle, this struggle, most will never comprehend
For he'll battle on till the very end
theres a war going down between my brothers tonight
I dont want no war going down tonight
civilization ha I call it as I see it
I call it bullshit you know I still cannot believe it
our evolution now has gone the way of hate
a world evolved resolved in this stupid fate
stop this war
all so different yeah I say were all the same
all caught you know in the division game
self destruction fast impending like a bullet
no one can stop it once its fired no one can control it
stop this war
a final word, wait it's not a call to action
we aint no sect we aint no fucking faction
unity unity youve heard it all before
this time its not exclusive we want to stop a war
unity as one stand together
No I don't give a shit I'm just sick and fucking fed up
Always falling on my face trying hard to keep my head up
Cause this life has got me running, repetitions got me pinned
I've gotta break this cycle. Where the fuck do I begin?
Chorus:
Oh no... what has gotten into me
Oh yeah... could it be the monotony
Of life... and all of the anxiety?
Alright... I don't ever wanna be
Dead to the world but sometimes I feel so lost and alone
Its so hard to let go. What can I say "Well I'm okay!"
I'm not so... Sometimes I Just don't know.
And I don't wanna grow old and burn out
And I don't wanna lose hope and find out
What can you do when your dreams turn to your doubts?
Sometimes I just don't Know (2x)
... how to but I won't pretend I'm not another brick in the wall
Another fish in the pot. Another cog in the system
Repetition and routine. I've gotta break this cycle, it's killing all my dreams!
(Chorus)
Keep your head up
Hey... Its never over
Hey... Its just beginning to set in, to begin
The clock tick tocks and the days fly by
It's off to the pace and I don't ask why
Why we're born to conform... to consume... just to die?
Born to conform and we don't ask why.
Why do I feel so outside, looking in bruised and broken
Battle scars I get knocked down
Lick my wounds get up and stand in the line
[Chorus:]
Weæ®e all standing in a line, and itæ¯ never enough time
When your two steps behind, youæ®e always two steps behind
Cynical world with no commercials
Breading disguise of flamboyant lies
Factory built with no guarentee
Donæ° wanna buy this donæ° wanna stand in their line
(Chorus)
Don't want to, stand in your, don't want to stand in your line (2x)
Can you here the winds of change
As they're blowing on the streets
From the school yards where we ran
To the cafes where we eat
From the lips of common man
Burns a passion like the sun
This is the sound of revolution
[Chorus:]
Revolution
What we need is a...
Revolution
To break the chains of this disillusioned
System that's fucked
So put your fist up and Revolt
Can you hear the winds of change
As their knocking on the door
Reciting words of wisdom
The truth and so much more
From the lips of common man
Burns a passion like the sun
This is the sound of revolution
[Chorus]
What are we waiting for? [3x]
United we stand, divided we're all (HEY HEY)
Too proud to see that this land we call free is not free
There are laws to control us...
Our rights, designed cut-to-fit
A system breeding apathy for profit
Profiting our trust
[Chorus:]
As we follow the sheppard to the slaughter
They rape us of our rights
They take, they fake, prefabricate
A false hope to cope while they devastate
Then they tell us our safety, justifies their iron fist
They speak with good intentions, but it is all just politics
Contradictions and lies, pulling wool over our eyes
Money, power, profit, hidden well with great disguise
They mislead us and deceive us, because they don't want us to know
For the people, by the people, I don't think so (2x)
Corn bread on apathy
By Uncle Sams Johnny Appleseed
The media and popular demand
United we're all divided we stand in line
As they profit (HEY HEY)
Make no mistake
They'll go as far as it takes to conquer then cover their ass
Ignorance and the key to knowledge
The two greatest allies that money can buy
When you've got tax dollars to back it
(Chorus)
Oh say, say you can see
Your inalienable rights donæ° exist
Itæ¯ just a nice catch phrase to satisfy and give substance
While they, try to justify their iron fist
Letæ¯ take it back?
It seems like our whole life, gets wasted watching others lives
As we sit, watch, and obey, our aspirations fade to gray
Why are we so afraid, to make up our own minds
Each and everyday, KNOW, that this choice is yours
The is choice is yours to make, choose your path
Its in the marketplace on the magazines
Its on your living room on your TV screen
Its the car you drive its the clothes you wear
How much money you have or how you cut your hair
Born into bought, caught up in games
Brainwashed and taught to think the same
It's not what's inside, don't you know
It's the human need for approval
[Chorus:]
It's just a fix to face another day
Such a stupid game we humans play, wake up and live your life!!
Why does it matter what they say, why does it matter what they think
They're only doing what they're told, in the end we're all the same,
We don't have to play this game
We're taught to color in the lines, express our thoughts
But never question this our decline...
Just consume what they prescribe to you, to face another day
Alone....searching for approval, playing the whore...open your eyes
Realize that this game doesn't count for shit
The dark and stormy clouds of rage came rumbling in
And the city burn a blaze so bright the night resembled morning
There was vengeance in their eyes as their voices pierced the silence
The city smelled of chaos and the news reported Riot (Riot Riot Riot!)
Drop the routine and go
The common consensus down every single road
One a looting next a shooting... it left you wondering what's next?
The city burned a blaze because of mans ignorance
[Chorus:]
We took a stand (but were we as one)
We made demands (based on opinions)
So here we stand (in our waste land)
Back where we began
Too much power made the human greed
The milk is sour and we're still in need
Eleventh hour let the blind man see
That we're back where we began I said were back where we began!
Riot, Riot, Riot (4x)
From the cold concrete ruins came the echoed cry
As the morning broke so did the sky
To reveal the seal that had been broke
The past the present the future..a joke
I saw the market place I saw my house
I saw the school yard, park, windows broken out
Under a brand new day, a brand new sun
I stood amongst the chaos...god what have we done?
(Chorus)
Oh my god what have we done
We waged a war that cant be won (2x)
And now we're back where we began
I woke up again today
To a world so broke and full of hate
Tried to pretend that it's ok
But it cut so deep there was no escaping
This world is so fucked
So cruel and so corrupt
But I know you know that you can't give up
No you can lose hope so...
[Chorus:]
We push and shove [2x]
To rise above [2x]
And this fight we fight
For the better day
A brand new day
We stand together
In Hope!
This life can be so short
And this world can cut us deep inside
But what we choose to emphasize
Will be our lose or help us realize
That it doesn't have to be this way
No it doesn't have to be this way
Conscious our choice
In Hope we raise our voice yeah....
[Chorus]
Hope... We long for understanding
The truth... Is simply all were asking
Why... Why must we live in sorrow?
So... We live in defiance and hope [2x]
We stand together in hope!!!
[Chorus]
Struck down you died, one December night
Taken in cold blood, under Texas twilight
The headlines all read, it was "punks vs. the jocks"
As your killer walks free, we're still left with this loss
[Chorus:]
We must teach tolerance, and stop this senseless violence
We are at war
This war we will fight
But not with our fists
Vengeance will shed in the name of education
So sad we watch daily on the nightly news
Another act of violence, another taken too soon
From the streets, from the hands of man so hateful and unjust
We must destroy this callus mind set and build each other up
(Chorus)
No we need no more!
No more (4x)
Need no more, we don't need no more (4x)
And now I raise my voice... In defiance
To break the chains that have bound these hands
Arrest the fear inside and shed this callous coat
I've got to know just where I stand...
Chorus:
I will... not walk silently through this life
I will... never yield the passion in my soul
I will not surrender what's inside, I could never!
I will... not walk silently through this life this is my promise
And so I'll seize the day because it's all I've got
And I will question everything im taught
Emancipate my life, compel my thoughts
Embrace this world, I will not be bought so...
(Chorus)
And I will stand, and I will break the silence
I will (2x) I will not surrender
I will (2x) I will not surrender
No! I will not walk silent
No! I will not lose hope
No! I will not surrender
No! I'm gonna break the silence
This is my life and I will not give up 'till I die
No more fear, no more lies, I've got to know just where I stand
So you think you are the only one who feels like you do
The only one thatæ¯ been getting screwed
The only one who knows how it feels
To be so hurt, no one could feel like you
Just take one step back and open up your eyes
Thereæ¯ so many of us out here with the same problems in our lives
Weæ®e all searching for direction, how and which way to go
The answer to lifeæ¯ riddle, is what it kills to know
[Chorus:]
Lifeæ¯ not fair, nothingæ¯ fair
You said you listened but did you hear
The fine print reads, thereæ¯ no guarantee
This life is what you make, but nothing comes for free?
There is a price
Have you ever stopped and listened to yourself
As you piss and moan from your self-pitied shell
Thereæ¯ a reason life has itæ¯ twists and turns
Keep your head up kid, thereæ¯ so much left to learnåouæ®e not alone
Just for one fucking moment stop and think about this life
How unfortunate it is that many never think twice
When they walk past someone homeless turn their head and walk away
Then go on with their lives?Oh Whoa is me!
Do you ever get the feeling that you'll never get ahead
Working for a slave wage and your social life is dead
Does it ever cross your mind, does your life feel incomplete
When you're running like a dog in the 40 hour week
[Chorus:]
And you try so hard to, try so hard, but you can't keep up the pace
When the paycheck comes and the bills are due
You're gonna fall right on your face
And you scream (and you scream) and you shout (and you shout)
But you're stuck and you'll never get out
Take me away anywhere but here
Take me away I need to get away
Do you ever wonder why, why your life has passed you by
You're a slave to the code, working 9 to 5
The 40 hour fight for freedom has put you one foot in the grave
You're no american dream, you're the american slave
(Chorus)
From day in to day out, from one weekend to the next
You put that uniform on for the sake of a paycheck, and you
Pack your lunch, head straight for the routine, just to find yourself
Caught up, in a job that demeans you, to them you're nothing,
But a money making cog, built to fuel the corporate greed
Of the corporate fucking slobs, whose pocket books
Are lined with me and you, just a working class song
About the red, white, black, and blue
Verse 1
I've given you chances
I've given you a home
I've given you food and drink
Now I'm alone
I've given you love
I've given you tears
I've given you everything I can
That's why I'm here
Bridge
But you still, ya haven't explained
Why you did all that, all that stuff to me
I'm still here, still confused
Now I know what it feels like to be used
Chorus
You've got 2 minutes, 2 minutes to explain
2 minutes to tell me why you gave me pain
You've got 2 minutes, to tell me how
You managed to hurt me like that, your 2 minutes start now
As the modern world divides to war
And its leaders fight to settle scores
The war machine turns green in profit form
In its wake new fear is born
And peace is scorn by the hands of man who justify
Another death for their cause will no one question why
Why these solutions never work!
[Chorus:]
What's it gonna take... to break
The idea that we're free
To wage our wars
On the grounds we found an enemy
Break down these walls
Rise up refuse... we
Raise our voice raise our fists... to smash
To crush the cogs of the modern war
Will no one question
The intention of an endless war
Before you act learn the facts
Don't just settle for
The idea of freedom (freedom?)
Purchased on a battle field (freedom?)
Tell me what's it gonna take... what's it gonna take?
SOMETHINGS GONNA BREAK!
3,000 dead the headlines read
So shattered shocked I hung my head
As I sat my heart sunk lower as I watched
And the sky came falling
These clouds of soot were not silver lined
But lined with hate the kind of hate that's blind
So blind we returned the favor quick!
[Chorus]
Something's gonna break... something (something's gonna
break)
What's it gonna take... what's it (gonna take)
To break assassinate rise up and suffocate
The lies that they create to justify their endless wars
The time has come to stand up straight
2002 it's not to late
Rise up resist refuse to go to war
What the fuck are we dying for?
To rid the world of an enemy we cannot see...
To die for Oil corporate interest power profit greed?
Sometimes I say things that I donæ° mean
Sometimes the words come out wrong
Sometimes I take things too far
I haven't said Iæ¦ sorry in so long
How does one reconcile what they regret?
After all is said and done the parties done the dust sets
In time I know things work out
I'm sorry so sorry I know I let you down
I let you down...
[Chorus:]
And I never wanna make that mistake again...
True friendship is a bond you never wanna break
But I can t take it back I can only...
Make it up to you!
Oh how many times have I sat here and sworn
I'll stop tearing you down while our friendship I've scorn
With my harsh words of judgment, condescending ways
I'm sorry so sorry how could I make this mistake
So humble so caring yet so demeaning and crass
Friendship with out trust is just a ship sinking fast
Iæ³e learned in my life what goes around comes around
I'm sorry I've realized I just never want to let you down
Like Iæ³e let you down
(Chorus 2x)
If I had a button I could push (make it up to you)
To take it all away I would (make it up to you)
I've watched the good times come and go so fast
I remember the first time we met
How it felt ... to share a laugh and not feel alone
Thinking back on those days brings a smile to my face
A warmth in my heart, a pleasant escape
Memories like a puzzle, helping us reconnect
This life's long learned lesson I will never regret
[Chorus:]
Oh These Days...
These days I will never forget
Never forget... (Ohhh) These days
I will never forget...
These days I will never forget
Scattered torn tattered photographs litter on my bedroom floor
I've read and re-read the letters
We wrote... Ten billion times each one memorized
As the days fade and pass as the months turn to years
As we grow our own ways... as we laugh and shed tears
As we struggle, rejoice, make mistakes, come correct
Each life's long learned lesson we should never regret
(Chorus)
Take your time...Never forget
Where you come from...never regret (2x)
These days, these days I will never forget
Know your enemy (2x)
Its inside of you
Inside of me
Know your enemy...
The clock is ticking like a time bomb in the mind
Of the people whos rebel hearts cry out to break
The ties that bind desperate times to the human
Spirit in us all watch it fall light the fuse let it begin!
Chorus:
We are the people
We are the time bomb picket line
Revolution, A revolution forged and redefined
With our minds with our hearts not shackled hands
Born to care not to kill
To help our fellow man and so we stand
Hand in hand and in solidarity
To know the truth, Know yourself, and know...
Know your enemy
And we're like fuses like candles burning at both ends
In the darkness in this madness lies another means to an end
But I contend that the human spirit in us all
Will stand tall... light the fuse let it begin!
(Chorus)
So take these words tear them down they don't mean anything
If we don't act on our ideas than they're just words we sing
Fuck your rhetoric of reason your banner and your plea
'Till you know the truth, know yourself, and know...
There was this wise man I once knew
Who lived down my street a block or 2
In a back alley where the autumn leaves blew
A simple man with a heart so true
John Doe was a quiet man, who kept to himself and lived off the land
He panned his living with a rusty tin can
Been living off the streets since Vietnam
When Johnny came marching home
From the Vietnam war he was alone
Slapped with a label, he hid his face, the nightmare of war
Was one he couldnæ° erase, when Johnny came marching home
(he said) I canæ° let go, I canæ° forget
25 years later, that smell I still remember
As I watched so many young men lose their lives, on that battlefield
To Vietnam they sent us barely, old enough they placed us
On the front lines in a land we had no placeå'e had no place!!!
On the day I left that battlefield, I might as well have died
Because nothing in my life this far, has ever felt quite right
And each and everyday I try to pick the pieces up
But the pieces never seem to fit, the pain becomes too much
It's hard to describe, so hard to relate, it's hard letting go
When you can't escape
To think that when we came home our country turned its back
And labeled us all murderers, spit on us, spit on us and laughed
He spoke with such convicting words, I felt like I was there
A simple frail and shattered soul, the soldier never dies he sang
I thought about how it must feel to watch all your friends die
How could they do this, how could they say
We've done the wrong thing
The whole time, they told us, we would be there today
The smiles, they face us, in all the wrong ways
[Chorus:]
I offered what I could, the smiles they adored
Time broke through to the end, and stroked the loudest
chord
I've seen things, I've felt things, most others cannot
feel
I've smelled the stale smell, the taste of what's not
real
I've gone through my whole life, expecting to be the best
Now I'm living in a dream, along with all the rest
How could they?....How could they say?
How can they tell us that it's not real,
How can they judge the way we feel
How could they really mean that it's not how it seems
How could they really mean that it's just a dream
The summer sun, sunsets the cityscape rise up
All the kids in the hall come together put your fists up
Iæ£l bring the mic if you bring the sound system
Weæ³e got all night to get lost in the rhythm
The stage is set the dives a wreck
5 dollars at the door and it feels so perfect
Said all I know is that I donæ° know nothing
Weæ³e got all night so there aint no sense in rushing
[Chorus:]
Itæ¯ time (HEY!) our time (HEY!)
Our voice, our stage, our vision, our community
Alright (HEY!) tonight (HEY!)
The youth are waging war
Donæ° you know weæ®e gonna win this fight
Itæ¯ time (HEY!) our time (HEY!)
Our voice, our stage, our vision, our community
Alright (HEY!) tonight (HEY!)
Turn it up, turn it out, lets go!
This conscious flame burns so bright in our vision in our sight
It illuminates, it radiates to rage against this dying light
Itæ¯ in our veins pumping passion deep into our soul
The missing link that finally made this puzzle whole
Oh now I know our visions clear
We are the voice of revolution infecting all who hear
See all we wanted was a place to call our own
And a chance to speak our minds so we donæ° have to feel alone
(Chorus)
Youæ³e gotta stay alert,
gotta stay aware,
gotta stay involved,
Alert, Aware, Involved (6x)
you speak, you speak to me in code
you speak a string of ones and o’s
you stood just hoping that i’d know
these secret stories that you’ve sold
you speak, you speak to me in code
i ran to catch a falling knife
to read a sheet of black and white
i drown to reach the air above
i learn the taste of my own blood
you speak, you speak to me in code
you speak and wonder if i’d know
you hide the distance that i show
ignore the burning neon glow
you speak, you speak to me in code
i ran to catch a falling knife
to read a sheet of black and white
i drown to reach the air above
i learn the taste of my own blood
you speak, you speak to me in code
you speak, you speak to me in code…
i ran to catch a falling knife
to read a sheet of black and white
i drown to reach the air above
i learn the taste of my own blood
I did not expect
These feelings I would have for you
I cannot afford to feel
But something took me back
To where I was then
I don't fear what's coming
But I won't chase it
The smell of August flowers fills the air
Reminding me of teen-age disasters and despair
Can I walk this road?
Can I crack your code?
Why wear this mask?
Why take you back?
We protect ourselves
With facades just so
No one sees the real soul
Walking down the path
There's an obstacle ahead
I never wanted my life to be complacent
If the path ahead is clear
Then it's someone else's path
If the river doesn't bend you'll never see the ocean
The sounds of summer drift to me
Reminding me of innocence and safety
Can I walk this road?
Can I crack your code?
Why are you hiding from me?