Words bounce freely through the wind of fragile plans
Between a choir of linguistic pirates with sweet and sticky hands
Room service, lip service, here are our demands
They use them as shelters, they wear them as skin
To stand hollow and sing out, "we're with you, my friend"
Coup d'etat concepts, commandeer definitions

The crass and crude tools are a thing of the past
No mess, no spectacle, just tightropes and gas
Cha-ching, bang, boomerang! - it's comin' round fast
See the paper princes and the empires by pen
Fine print dynasties pressure cooking men
The fuel is desperation and the match is "sign, my friend"

And hot potato - it's revolution!
Can't slow down or it's back to square one
No striking deals or it's carrots and sticks
Hot-air promises and party tricks
Walking high above our heads it's suits on stilts
Tying Mother down, letting strugglin' flowers wilt -
Now send in the jackals, topple everything they built

We're gonna need every instrument in
Music, magic, and that good old medicine
No fetish for permanence, no more paper chasers
We'll dig our hands into the Earth and eat the fruits of our labor
Sound the strike-callin', mudrakin', whistleblowin' watchdogs
The masquerade is over, can't impose order on fog
Good for you ain't good for us, oust the half truth hogs -

Or else! They'll give you a ladder and kick out the posts
And say come on sheriff, lay off the skyscraper scapegoats
We're all out of great whites but we still got grey hopes
No joke, shows young folk how to limp with style and not mope
They know there's a pie but they don't know what kind it is
They know it's in the sky but they don't know how high it is
I'm not buying it, nobody's finding it
They're trying and failing by the five and dime with it

So, onward and upward, reach for it, man
Just work a little harder, on tippy-toes you stand
Through a series of mirrors, it seems so close to your hand
Yes, onward and upward, keep reaching, my friend
No destination
No certainty
No prize
And no end.