They were digging a new foundation in Manhattan They discovered a slave cemetery there And may their souls rest easy now that lynching has been frowned upon And we've moved on to the electric chair
And I wonder who's gonna be president Tweedle dum or tweedle dumber? And who's gonna have the big Blockbuster box office This summer How 'bout we put up a wall Between the houses and the highway And then you can go your way And I can go my way
Except all the radios agree with all the TVs And all the magazines agree with all the radios And I keep hearing that same damn song Everywhere I go Maybe I should put a bucket over my head And a marshmallow in each ear And stumble around for another dumb numb week For another hum drum hit song to appear
People used to make records As in a record of event The event of people Playing music in a room Now everything is cross-marketing It's about sunglasses and shoes Or guns or drugs You choose
We got it rehashed We got it half-assed We're digging up all the graves And we're spitting on the past And we can choose between the colors Of the lipstick on the whores Cuz we know difference Between the font of twenty percent more And the font of teriyaki You tell me How does it make you feel? You tell me what's real
And they say that alcoholics are always alcoholics Even when they're as dry as my lips for years Even when they're stranded on a small desert island With no place in two thousand miles to buy beer And I wonder is he different is he different Has he changed What he's about Or is he just a liar With nothing to lie about I'm headed for the same brick wall Is there anything I can do About anything at all
Except go back to that corner in manhattan And dig deeper Dig deeper this time Down beneath the impossible pain of our history Beneath unknown bones Beneath the bedrock of the mystery Beneath the sewage system an the path train Beneath the cobblestones and the water main Beneath the traffic of friendships and street deals Between the screeching of kamikaze cab wheels wheels Beneath everything I can think of to think about Beneath it all Beneath all get out Beneath the good and the kind and the stupid and the cruel There's a fire just waiting for fuel