Macklemore, Ryan Lewis - This Unruly Mess I've Made lyrics

I couldn't escape
I'd been escaping the whole time
I had to finally look
Look at the mess we had made
And all that's lacker the glory
And tarnished failures
Stare at it and then leave

I was too comfortable
Being comfortable is what kills artists
There is creativity for validation and
There is creativity for survival
They're very different places
I didn't know what I wanted to say
Didn't know how the ink would
Stick to the page
How to let go of the anxiety
And the suffocating fear that latched
Onto my vocal chords
I had to figure out how to use my voice again

So we went ghost the Irish goodbye
Into the woods in the dead of winter
We bought a 1985 Suburban
Loaded up our equipment and just left town

People make music for all different reasons
It's the fabric that connects us
We dance together, we cry together
We celebrate our communities
We question our politics
We laugh, we scream, we imagine, we live
What I couldn't find in a
Hotel room on the road, or even in Seattle
I found in the middle of nowhere
No reception
Making music not because we had to
But because we got to
I had forgotten how to do that
Not being afraid of the platform
We were standing on
Not creating from a place of
"Don't fuck it up"
But creating from a place of "Fuck it up"

Look at the mess
Not just the one that we created
But the one that is the
Very fabric of our country
The mess we're all living in
Stop being silent even if it's not perfect
Or politically correct, you have to speak up
You have to listen
Dance, cry, question everything
Laugh, scream, imagine, live

Music was never intended to be programmed to
Manufactured and turned into a commodity
Music was intended to be that one thing that
We could rely on to disrupt the norm
Start conversations and change the way that
We think and we feel

If you aren't scared of what you created
You aren't done yet
On February 26th, I want to share with you
This Unruly Mess I've Made