Kae Tempest - Tunnel Vision lyrics

Indigenous apocalypse, decimated forest
The Winter of our discontent’s upon us
Desolate apostles
Left with Strongbow at the crossroads
We are nothing but an
Eating mouth, oesophagus, colossal
We won’t stop until we’ve beaten
Down the planet into pellets
Before the interstellar mission to
Inflict more terror
It’s killing me, it’s killing me
It’s filling me, I’m vomiting
It’s still in me
Everything is fine really, silly me
Poor kids shot dead, poor kids locked up
Poor kids saying
"This is the future that you left us?"
Stopped up lunch meat, processed
Punch from an unclean fatcat
Tasty, tasty poison
Carcinogenic, diabetic, asthmatic, epileptic


Post traumatic, bipolar and disaffected
Atomised, thinking we’re engaged
When we’re pacified
Staring at the screen so we don’t
Have to see the planet die

What we gonna do to wake up?
We sleep so deep
It don’t matter how they shake us
If we can’t face it, we can’t escape it
But tonight the storm’s come

She’s screaming, she’s screaming
The drones turned her beautiful boy
Into a pile of bones
No body to bury, nobody is home
Running from war, the boat’s full
The boat’s sinking a mile off shore
No beds in the hospitals
Our minds are against us
Imagine your daughter was
Gunned down defenceless on her way to school
There’d be uproar
But she’s collateral damage
It doesn’t matter now if our kids are fine
That’s enough for us
You can’t love into a vacuum
There’s got to be a limit
Welcome to the biggest crime
That’s ever been committed
You think you and I are different kinds
You’re caught up in specifics
You and I apart are easier to limit
The illusion’s so complete it’s impossible
To bring it into focus
Cinematic stock footage
You think people are locusts
Uniform men keep unleashing explosives

What we gonna do to wake up?
We sleep so deep
It don’t matter how they shake us
If we can’t face it, we can’t escape it
But tonight the storm’s come

Tunnel vision, tunnel vision
Work, drinks, heartbreak
You can’t face the past
The past’s a dark place
Can’t sleep, can’t wake, sitting in our boxes
Notching up our victories as
Other people’s losses another day
Another chance to turn your
Face away from pain let’s get a takeaway
And meet me in the pub a little later
We’ll say the same things as ever
Life’s a waiting game
When we gonna see that life is happening?
And that every single body bleeding on
It's knees is an abomination
And every natural being
Is making communication
And we’re just sparks
Tiny parts of a bigger constellation
We’re miniscule molecules that make
Up one body you see the tragedy and pain of
A person that you’ve never met
Is present in your nightmares
In your pull towards despair
And the sickness of the culture
And the sickness in our hearts
Is a sickness that’s inflicted by
This distance that we share
Now, it was our bombs that started this war
And now it rages far away
So we dismiss all it's victims as strangers
But they’re parents and children made
Dogs by the danger
Existence is futile, so we don’t engage
But it was our boats
That sailed, killed, stole, and made frail
It was our boots that stamped
It was our courts that jailed
And it was our fuckin’ banks that got bailed
It was us who turned bleakly away
Looked back down at our nails
And our wedding plans
In the face of a full-force gale, we said
"Well, it’s not up to us to
Make this place a better land
It’s not up to us to make
This place a better land"
Justice, justice, recompense, humility
Trust is
Trust is something we will never see
Till love is unconditional
The myth of the individual has
Left us disconnected, lost, and pitiful
I’m out in the rain
It’s a cold night in London
And I’m screaming at my loved ones
To wake up and love more
I’m pleading with my loved ones to
Wake up and love more