Flobots - Mayday!!! lyrics

Born in the flood, bloody fingerpaint sets
Black marketed
Fresh water cannons forget me not
Epitaph airbrushed with death
White tees, wife beaters
Button up, reattach flesh!

In between the lines (In between the lines)
Outside of the law (Outside of the law)
Underneath the veil (Underneath the veil)
We dig our foundations
(We navigate the globe)
Trying to find a pattern to break the mold
(Pattern to break the mold)
With a family to feed (Family to feed)
There's nowhere we won't go
But what if we're caught
They say I'm a snitch shot at the checkpoint
Found with his throat slit
There's spray paint on the teleprompter
Anchorman screams that he's seen a monster
(Mayday)
There's bloodstains on his shirt (Mayday)
They say that he's gone berserk!

Sometimes when I wanna shut out this world
Want to rip up this page
Want to pour out this heart
Want to get up on this stage
And my lips become percussion
And my fists become the rage
And I pound on this table
'Til it gives me something to say
Then I think about things that I've seen
Right in front of me that
I don't wanna believe
Gimme one of these mics
Let me let 'em know: the way that
It is is not how it's gonna be
Not if we don't let 'em get ahead of us
The present tension's no threat
It's just a fence across the path
That we're already ready to walk
Rock solid footsteps
Let 'em put up obstacles
And prove that it isn't possible
​Fuck​ that! We don't give 'em any weight
True liberty and freedom's at stake
Peace will never become passé
Live my life until my last day
It was half past eight in the Bat Cave
When the cracks in the plaster
Collapsed and gave way to
Gaps in the pavement
(Mayday, mayday) Put it on blast
For the passengers and messengers
Cause this is a disaster
Where the fuck are the rescue workers?
Not far, off pissing on a cop car
In the hall with a Pop Tart
Sipping liquor in the rock bar
Everyone climb to the frontline
Lunchtime's cancelled
All hands on deck to pull
Survivors from the landfill
Onlookers, passers-by
Brush off your shoulders
Shake off that rubble
Break free from your standstill

Signs of a better world, causes we understand
Failures we expected to occur and
Bring redemption for our sins
Safety from the crowds
In the shadows on the run
We write our own Cider House
Rules to keep alive
Rituals that prove their worth
Search for systems we can trust
Rhythms we can lock into

This is madness, salvage teams can't bandage
Hope when it's damaged or broken compassion
There's not enough rope in the van
When the world is collapsin'
Our mode of action
Broadcast through the glass
All we can manage
Donate with the plastic scrapped
From the salad
Hopin' to balance, emotions invalidated
Staged on four-to-three aspects
Just ballast for sadness
Lives shattered are standard fare for
Cameras and channels stare no abracadabras
No faster answers or mantras for disasters
Remastered or plastered
We got it all backwards
Do you know the faction you're backin'?
It's another man down, another mother gone
Child drowned, another silent song
Solitude, another kind of strong
I miss you, another strung along
Missing in action another page is blackened
Burned, turned, ashes to ashes
Dust off the flags and the caskets

We will never find another you
Despite the life of love we knew
These lightning times are trouble, who
Can count the strikes that punish through?
The bonds we thought would never break
And never will, and never change
And never fade, but there's the rage
Of losing you to their mistakes!

(In between the lines) Signs
Of the next movement
(Refuge from the crowd) Outside of the law
(Causes we understand) Hands that trace
Instructions for descendants in the
Shadows on the run (Underneath the veil)
Failures we expected to occur
And bring redemption for our sins
(In between the lines) In between the lines

In between the lines, outside of the law
Underneath the veil
In between the lines, outside of the law
Underneath the veil
In between the lines, outside of the law
Underneath the veil, we carve our foundations
In between the lines, outside of the law
In between the lines