AGAINST ME! – Tonight We’re Gonna Give It 35%

We drank bottled water together and talked business.
I think I played the right moves.
You were lookin’ over my shoulder,
as I went through the motions of another night,
And it was alright,
’cause I thought I knew who everybody was just by lookin’ at them.
My heart is anywhere but here,
and how tired I was from the past couple of weeks,
From the past couple of years.
Well, it hit me all at once,
On a balcony overlooking nothing,
With snow falling all around,
Well I, I called just to say “Goodnight”.
And you hadn’t done anything wrong,
And know, really, really, it’s me not you.
I can’t believe how naive I was to think things could ever be so simple,
And can you live with what you know about yourself,
When you’re all alone, behind closed doors?
The things we never said, but we always knew were right there.
It’s got me on my knees in a bathroom,
Praying to a God that I don’t even believe in,
“Well, dear Jesus, are you listening?
If this is the one chance that really matters,
Well, don’t let me fuck this up.
If you’d told me about all this when I was fifteen,
I never would have believed it.”

AGAINST ME! – Those Anarcho Punks Are Mysterious…

We’re all presidents, we’re all congressmen,
We’re all cops in waiting,
We’re the workers of the world,
There is the elite and the dispossessed,
And it’s only about survival,
Who has the skill to play the game for all it’s worth,
And reach an obscure kind of perfection,
Let’s try and keep as much emotion out of this as possible,
Let’s try not to remember any names,
We’ll do it for a country, for a people, for a moral vision,
United, we’ll make them remember our history,
Or how we’d like to be told,
How we’d like to be told…

And we rock,
Because it’s us against them.
We found our own reasons to sing,
And it’s so much less confusing
when lines are drawn like that,
When people are either consumers or revolutionaries,
Enemies or friends hanging on the fringes
Of the cogs in the system,
It’s just about knowing where everyone stands.
All of a sudden,
People start talking ’bout guns,
Talking like they’re going to war,
‘Cause they found something to die for,
Start taking back what they stole-
sure beats every other option,
But does it make a difference how we get it?
Well do you really fucking get it?
No, no, no, no,
No, no, no, no….

AGAINST ME! – This Is Control

I can envision your perfect nation, your plan to sedate intellectual pacification. I have to believe that there’s more that this. The truth in my hands, that I am not sick, I don’t live in sin, that this is all wrong, the reality prison, dreams of human liberation.

Beating a dead horse with fear in your eyes accepted a battle with a war in mind. Singled out the target, big brother in the rifle sights. So you shoot to kill, death just to feel, thunder to fear, rain to know tears. Hide in the image the armor of cowards, hidden in vices just to deal, your elitist faction fueling the flames. In wonder of this revolutionary standstill.

Lifestyle choices, never in struggle? Short sighted goals, this is not freedom, this is control! The prisoner plotting his escape exclusive anarchy a joke in bad taste. Did you offer solution is that why he turned his head, or insult his ignorance, in experience, blindness. You cry for the satisfaction before you put in the work, accept possibilities as a dream, what the fuck’s the fuss for? Is this sincerity or is this a joke?

AGAINST ME! – The Price Of Freedom

Is it too much to ask that you die for the cause? Rather die free than live a life in slavery, Better a martyr than a prisoner. I’ll always have what’s inside of me. I’ll always have my memories. Never surrender identity. Is it too much to ask that you die for the cause?

Freedom

All the while my mind’s been free. There’s places in me they never could reach. Is it too much to ask that I die for the cause? I’d rather die free than live a life in slavery. Is it too much to ask that I die for the cause? Better a martyr than a prisoner. Is it too much to ask that I die for the cause? This anger is sadly a part of me. If that’s what it takes then I’ll die trying. I’ll die for the cause.

AGAINST ME! – Thrash Unreal

If she wants to dance and drink all night, well there’s no one that can stop her.
She’s going until the house lights come up or her stomach spills onto the floor.
This night is gonna end when we’re damn well ready for it to be over.
Worked all week long now the music is playing on our time.
We do what we do to get by, and then we need a release.

You get mixed up with the wrong guys.
You get messed up on the wrong drugs.
Sometimes the party takes you places that you didn’t really plan on going.
When people see the track marks on her arms she knows what they’re thinking.
She keeps on working for that minimum,
as if a high school education gave you any other options, you know.
They don’t know nothing about redemption.
They don’t know nothing about recovery.
Some people just aren’t the type for marriage and family.

No mother ever dreams that her daughters going to grow up to be a junkie.
No mother ever dreams that her daughters going to grow up to sleep alone.
[x2]

She’s out of step with the style.
She don’t know where the actions happening.
You know the downtown club scene ain’t nothing like it used to be.
You reach a point where there’s not a lie in the world
that you could use to make the boys believe you’re still in you twenties.
But they keep getting younger, don’t they baby?
She’s not waiting for someone to come over and ask for the privilege.
She can still hear that Rebel Yell just as loud as it was in 1983, you know.
There ain’t no Johnny coming home to share a bed with her and she doesn’t care.

No mother ever dreams that her daughters going to grow up to be a junkie.
No mother ever dreams that her daughters going to grow up to sleep alone.
[x2]
No mother ever dreams that her daughters going to grow up to be a junkie.
And if she had to live it all over again you know she wouldn’t change anything for the world.

AGAINST ME! – The Ocean

If I could have chosen where God would hide his heaven,
I would wish for it to be in the salt and swell of the ocean.
Carried by the currents to all continents’ shores.
Reaching into depths where the sun’s light has never shown.
Mixed with algae and coral.
Breathed in by sharks and dolphins.
Sailed by tanker ships, private yachts, swam in by tourists.
Working its way up through inlets, lakes, and rivers, swamps, and estuaries.
Down through limestone into the aquifer.
Purified by the county, pumped through pipes and out faucets.
Filled into a glass to meet the thirst of our children.

If I could have chosen, I would have been born a woman.
My mother once told me she would have named me Laura.
I would grow up to be strong and beautiful like her.
One day I’d find an honest man to make my husband.
We would have two children, build our home on the Gulf of Mexico.
Our family would spend hot summer days at the beach together.
The sun would kiss our skin as we played in the sand and water.
We would know we loved each other without having to say it.
At night we would sleep with the windows of our house left open.
Letting the cool ocean air soothe the sunburned shoulders of our children.

There is an Ocean in my soul where the waters do not curve.

AGAINST ME! – The Disco Before The Breakdown

If you follow the jaw line down over the heart,
the curves of your bone and muscle that make up your head to toe…
It’s just skin and thread, stitches and ligaments,
words that we spoke only to regret.

And I know they’re going to laugh at us
when they, when they see us out together “holding hands” like this.
They wouldn’t understand it if we told them all the reasons,
not that I think this deserves any kind of explanation.

And we’ll, we’ll make it up so we’ve got a smile painted on all the time,
no matter what it’s like on the inside.
We’ll keep this, keep us like a secret,
cause if my family and friends ever found out about
the things we could never be,
haunts we’ll all keep, so fucking bittersweet.

And I know they’re going to laugh at us
when they, when they see us out together “holding hands” like this.
They wouldn’t understand it if we told them all the reasons,
not that I think this deserves any kind of explanation.

AGAINST ME! – Tearing Down The Walls

Mind game after mind game for the head-trip after all the shit. One step in advancement, numb to everything. Searching for the result, striving for resolution, offering no solution just more dogma for confusion. Fill you full of promise with your back against the wall; interpret a hopeless freedom where chains liberate the soul. Answers to silent questions from the idols of the dark. First present solution then we’ll see about tearing down the walls…

Health all alone you find there’s nothing left to fear, with the one exception of the message they conceal. Face placed on the master you find the mirror brings disgust. From the confines of this entrapment you can justify anger as lust. Blatant disregard to the feelings within, selling your own soul condescending nature flowing within. You can hate the system search for bricks to smash the state, but what’s the point of revolution when no one can relate? For the finger falls one person short, the crosshairs turned around and you cry war. First present solution then we’ll see about tearing down the walls…

AGAINST ME! – Take Aim

There is no anger, just growing exhaustion and disgust.
No longer difference between.
A cynicism has been writing itself into my skin,
and I am sick to death of it.

So let it burn in the front yard,along with everything I own.
Piled up and sprayed down with gasoline,
Soak the embers in the broken heads of my
guitars as we dance around in circles, torch ourselves in effigy.
Everybody jump up live, love longer

So are you really listening?
I don’t want any part of it.
I was worried and upset about what I’m gonna do without your genre acceptance.
Then it came to me:
You gotta turn your back and abandon it.

I’m taking aim at you; as a focus and recipient of judgment.
Well your politics are easy to remember,
especially when sung along to beats like this, so:
It’s a dirty little secret about money?
It’s a dirty little secret about poverty?
It’s a dirty little secret about hunger?
Another little secret about war and brutality.

There is no romance, no glamour in reality.

What!?

There is no romance, no glamour in reality.

AGAINST ME! – Suffocation

We were young heartbreakers estranged from our wealthy parents,
doing key bumps in a handicap bathroom.
Stoned complacent, ambivalent, mass communicating with shared subconscious.

Suffocation.
Modern life in the western world.

Homosexual sons of unfulfilled fathers.
Divorced from reality, free and young.
We were bashing our brains out on a kitchen cabinet.
It was a televised crucifixion.
Suffocation.
Modern life in the western world.

We were star-crossed, we were destitute.
Our words spoke mass destruction.
We watched the sun rise in the morning.
Daughters in arm, we all are orphans.

Suffocation.
Modern life in the western world.

In the western world.

AGAINST ME! – So Much More

No you’re never gonna be anything more than just another punk band
It’s never gonna be anything more than rock and roll
Let’s play our song, it’s been so many times before
But you keep on listening because you wanna believe that it’s possible
Abandon artistic integrity
Drop all pretensions and just lock into the beat
We can have some more in a solid melody

Means so much more than the city and state
Means so much more than fame and adulation
Gonna prove that we’re more than our father’s sons and daughters
That we’re meant for so much more than the future could ever offer
So here we come gunning for revenge
It’s a little too late for an apology
Means so much more than they could ever give to us [x2]

I’m not asking for your acceptance
I’m not waiting for you to understand
Means so much more than a lover
Means so much more than the actor
So much more than your complete devotion
So much more than you could ever give to me

And Maybe we’ll never see our efforts indicated
Maybe we’ll never amount to anything
We’re not looking back
We’re not making compromises
We are willing to dare
We are willing to believe
If I only had more time
If I only had more words to explain

So much more than the world could ever give to me [x6]

AGAINST ME! – Stop!

Stop! Take some time to think, figure out what’s important to you.
Stop! Take some time to think, figure out what’s important to you.
Stop! Take some time to think, figure out what’s important to you.
You’ve got to make a serious decision.
[x2]

It could be me up there in stage lights.
It could be me on the TV in you living room.
It could be me jet setting with my band all across the world.
Appearing live in concert one night only, tickets sold out.

Stop! Take some time to think, figure out what’s important to you.
Stop! Take some time to think, figure out what’s important to you.
Stop! Take some time to think, figure out what’s important to you.
You’ve got to make a serious decision.

There I am giving candid disclosure to press in interview.
There I go on my way through the crowd up to the podium.
On behalf of our fans we’d like to accept this award.
Smile for the camera boys, gold record in hand.

Stop! Take some time to think, figure out what’s important to you.
Stop! Take some time to think, figure out what’s important to you.
Stop! Take some time to think, figure out what’s important to you.
You’ve got to make a serious decision.

All of our lives in waiting.
All of our lives traded for their roses and applause.
All of our lives dedicated to shoving it right back in their fucking face.

Stop! Take some time to think, figure out what’s important to you.
Stop! Take some time to think, figure out what’s important to you.
Stop! Take some time to think, figure out what’s important to you.
You’ve got to make a serious decision.
I said you’ve got to make a serious decision.

Stop! Take some time to think.

AGAINST ME! – Spanish Moss

You just need to find some place to get away.
You can forget your name.
And there’s no need to apologize.

It could be a good life.
It could be such a very good life.
We could find a place for just me and you.
Need some place to stay safe, need some place to stay safe and warm.
Why don’t we deserve the same?

You just need to find some place to get away.
You can forget your name.
And there’s no need to apologize.

Look into the Spanish moss.
Let your mind conjure up old ghosts.
Ride you bike through lost Florida streets.
Everything we’ve said and done, can be so easily forgotten.
You can always change who you are.

You just need to find some place to get away.
You can forget your name.
And there’s no need to apologize.
I caught a glimpse of this life, it could be such a very good life.
We could find a place for just me and you.
But it’s not yours to keep.
Yeah, the truth will tear your heart out.
In a world run by gangsters you’re stuck standing in a bread line.

You just need to find some place to get away.
You can forget your name.
And there’s no need to apologize.

AGAINST ME! – Slurring The Rhythms

There was cameras brought for pictures to hold all the small details.
We left them all behind, we left them all behind.
There was a place for there was a time for, we arrive to leave again,
there is no point in a keepsake when you run from collections.

I know one day there will be a book or a song line to remind me how much it meant to me hungry, exhausted and alone.
Direction is a point, direction is a purpose, destination is a reason to live…and this makes a heart beat.

This could be any day, this could be any year.
This could be any stage, this could be any city.
All that matters is we’re moving on.
The roadside graveyards pass and we escape,
we escape, we escape, we escape repeating.
And this construction of a nation building up
and the destruction of a nation tearing down to build again.
Trailing taillights like the ghosts of the past to escape those pasts, en route to arrival.
We’re never going home.

AGAINST ME! – Sink, Florida, Sink

Not one more word tonight
between here and there
We’ll put a distance the size of the ocean
so now this heart can beat a skipping rhythm
As the cadence carries me
I almost drift away
far enough to forget
but when it comes you cannot hesitate
and when found i will write
an account and seal it in an envelope
addressed to your last known residence

Whoaaaa.
whoa – oh – oh – ah – ohhh
woah – oh – oh – ah – ohhhhh
woah – oh – oh – ohhhhhh

And we sink, and we drown
and what is lost can never be found
well these arms did swim,
until the lungs pulled in
panic was lost in a deep understanding
that you will see what is wrong with everything
what is wrong with you and me
they make all the right reasons to fuck it up
you’re gonna fuck it up

Whoaaaa.
whoa – oh – oh – ah – ohhh
woah – oh – oh – ah – ohhhhh
woah – oh – oh – ohhhhhh

[Whisper]
(That sounded pretty good to me)
(I thought it was pretty good)

AGAINST ME! – Shit Stroll (Nah Nah Nah)

Nah, nah nah nah nah, whoa-oh, ohhh
Nah, nah nah nah nah, whoa-oh, ohhh

Street lights
Shed the light of vision to the calling plot
You remember every moment
Was there ever a time?
Or has it always been like this?
Tonight the bottle offers no answers
These were the decisions you said you could handle
This was the moment you said you were ready for
So the unexpected doesn’t appease me

Nah, nah nah nah nah, whoa-oh, ohhh
Nah, nah nah nah nah, whoa-oh, ohhh

All day I saw around you
Construction of lies
Tear apart your insides
They’re whispers
Not suggestions
Liar icons
Too full of sense of direction
Blind, miracle cures
Offer to sedate the friend of the flesh
Seizes the benefit
The words of the charade
Save our companions
Will there ever be a time?

Nah, nah nah nah nah, whoa-oh, ohhh
Nah, nah nah nah nah, whoa-oh, ohhh

Spent a lifetime in order to realize
What place I did it in
The material in each and empty thoughts
The standards of beauty
Look straight fascist
Save our social expectations
Or are you just so far gone to realize
Too close up to understand
Human nature versus man
Disorder!
To understand anarchists
Still annoyed by us anarchists
Sell our shit to all the kids

Nah, nah nah nah nah, whoa-oh, ohhh
Nah, nah nah nah nah, whoa-oh, ohhh

AGAINST ME! – Searching For A Former Clarity

No the doctors didn’t tell you,
that you were dying.
They just collected their money,
And sent you on your way.
But you knew all along,
went on pretending nothing was wrong,
you said I will keep my focus, till the end.
And in the journal you kept,
by the side of your bed.
You wrote nightly in aspiration,
of developing as an author.
Confessing childhood secrets,
of dressing up in women’s clothes,
Compulsions you never knew the reasons to,
Well everyone, you ever meet or love,
be just relationship based on a false presumption,
despite everyone, you ever meet or love,
in the end, will you be all alone?
As the disease spreads slowly through your body,
pumped by your heart to the tips of your arms and your legs,
your greatest fear was that your mind wouldn’t last,
your coherency and alertness would be the first things to fade,
as your hair thinned, as the weight fell off, as your teeth blackened,
as the lesions spotted your skin,
as you fell to your knees in the center of the stage,
as you offered witness to mortality in exchange for the ticket price,
as the lights blended into the continuing noise,
as all hope was finally lost.
Adrenaline carried one last thought to fruition.
Let this be the end.
Let this be the last song.
Let this be the end.
Let all be forgiven.

AGAINST ME! – Scream Until You’re Coughing Up Blood

Everything
You got to hold on to
Everything
You relied on to be there is completely fucked
There’s a skeleton of loyalty hanging in the gallows of your heart
(no one wins this one)
And where are your friends?
Please help me through these years ahead.
Are we just drinking buddies
Playing with each other’s deepest vulnerability?
That this is all we know?
So this is how it’s gonna stay?
I think I
Would rather
Remember how it was and go our separate ways.
I don’t feel anything
Unless we are living and dying for each other
Every second of our lives.

Everything
You thought that it would be,
Everything
You thought you were living for is completely fucked.
This is no place to be.
If we don’t get out of here right now,
We’re just gonna end up drunk, fucking,
and fighting and working machines.
If I have another cigarette,
If I drink another beer,
Sit quiet another time when I should’ve said
“Oh, this is too much.
There are things I never wanted to be.”
This ship has sprung a leak
And I’ll be damned if I’m going down with it.
Still breathing at any cost.

AGAINST ME! – Same Old Song

I’m sick of hearing the same old song. The same old heartbreaking story about some poor shit whose life sucks dick thinking he’s gonna change the world through another angry song. Well I don’t see progress just repetition same old songs about oppression. Another band that will break up in a year because no one in it really cared. Just in it so they could say they tried to their kids when they wonder why, why they let the world get to the point that it is.Yeah we’ve all tasted oppression but still we stand on division letting fashion taint our vision and thinking that our clothes alone damage the system.

I’m sick of hearing the same old songs.

We haven’t even made a dent but the system’s not going to let us forget that every time we make a stand Whitey smashes us back down again. Yeah I know we all got problems and I don’t think that this song’s going to solve them. Why can’t you find your own inspiration instead of sponging off last year’s condensation. It’s unfortunate that you’ve got no solution to the problems of oppression, pollution, abuse, death, self-sacrifice. Sometimes reality is an ugly thing. Oh yes this world is still a mess, but you still have one more complaint to add on to this list. Just one more dead weight to help pull down this sinking ship.

Same old heartbreaking story.

AGAINST ME! – The Politics Of Starving

It’s time for some real world politics,
economics, history, math and English.
Born and raised and bred walking a thin line,
between lost and succeeding and don’t ever care about.
The rules aren’t changing it if you really tell it like it is
Threats always been there, terror always happens.

For all the fights, for all the songs, all we said.
All we have is these pictures of us.
If it doesn’t matter now then it never really did,
And without this we might as well be dead.

They’re all black and white people,
and that doesn’t have anything to do with us.
After all these years it’s still an arms race,
after all these years they still don’t fucking get it.
Lives and cultures matter more than capitalist interest.
It’s the FBI; it’s the CIA; it’s the ATF, the IMF, NBC, CBS. Fuck you.

For all the fights, for all the songs, all we said.
All we have is these pictures of us.
If it doesn’t matter now then it never really did,
And without this we might as well be dead.

When you are so hungry that you’d believe anything.
Well they’re selling you the politics of starving.
And what the fuck does that really mean to us?