Against Me! Album

Evelyn sits by the elevator doors
It's been 37 years since James died on St. Patrick's Day in 1964
But she could not hold it against him
There were times when there was nothing she could do
But lie in bed all day beside a picture of them together
A picture of better days

And just like James, I'll be drinking irish tonight
and the memory of his last work week will be gone forever
Evelyn I'm not coming home tonight!
If we're never together
If I'm never back again
Well I swear to God that I'll love you forever
Evelyn I'm not coming home tonight!

In all the years that went by she said
She'd always love him
and from the day that he died
She never loved again

In his wallet she kept in her nightstand
an a.a. card and a lock of red hair
she kept secrets of pride locked so tight in her heart
it killed a part of her before the rest was gone.

She said, "If I would have known just how things would have ended up I just would have let myself die."

And just like james, I'll be drinking irish tonight
and the memory of his last work week wil be gone forever
Evelyn I'm not coming home tonight!
If we're never together
If I'm never back again
Well I swear to God that I'll love you forever
Evelyn I'm not coming home tonight!

its time for some real world politics, economics, history, math and english.
there are some of us who have, and some that go without.
america and justice are not synonymous.
for all the fights, for all the songs, all we said.
all we have is these pictures of us.
and if it doesnt matter now then it never really did, withouth this we might as well be dead.
theyre all black and white people, and that doenst have anything to do with us.
after all these years its still an arms race, after all these years they still dont fucking get it.
lives and cultures matter more than capitalist interest.
its the cia; its the fbi; the imf, from hmo's to mtv. fuck you.
for all the fights, for all the songs, all we said.
all we have is these pictures of us.
and if it doesnt matter now then it never really did, without this we might as well be dead.
when you are so hungry that youd believe anything.
theyre selling you the politics of starving.
what the fuck does that mean to us.

It was a birthday gift
of a Mexican Telecaster
And from this day on I will play along
to all my young pioneers records
And there will be a poetry spoken silently between me and the stereo
I'll work mornings
and you can work through the night
Mary, there is no hope for us
If this GM van don't make it
across the state line
we might as well lay down and die
Because if Florida takes us
we're taking everyone down with us
Where we're coming from (yeah)
will be the death us
And I cannot help but hold on
to a handful of times
when what was spoken
was a revolution in itself,
and what we were doing
was the only thing that mattered
And how good it felt
to kill the memory of nights spent
holding your shirt for the smell
I heard you used to cry
when you made love to him
but this band will play on
Because all we can do is what we've always done. And on and on and on...

Last night,
A room full, drunk,
Sang along to the songs I never had
The courage to write.
Given the chance
I'd stay in this chorus forever,
Where everything ugly in this world
Is sadly beautiful
In our desperate memories.
No, we're not
Gonna call everyone on their shit tonight,
Even though the half of you won't even smile
The next time we pass on the street.
Maybe somehow
This scam will still save us all...

Still save us all...
Still save us all.
Still save us all...
(Will save us all.)
Still save us all.

Then I saw you
Dancing at a punk rock show
And for a moment
We walked the streets that everyone else
Had given up to 4 AM,
'Cause promises
And spray paint marking
Everywhere we went
And every direction
Only going as far
As we let it.
There's so many things
We try to do truthfully.
By the time it's through with us,
It all falls apart.
Maybe somehow
This scam will still save us all.

Still save us all...
(Will save us all.)
Still save us all.
Still save us all...
(Will save us all.)
Still save us all.

Everything
You got to hold on to
Everything
You relied on to be there is completely fucked
There's a skeleton of loyalty hanging in the gallows of your heart
(no one wins this one)
And where are your friends?
Please help me through these years ahead.
Are we just drinking buddies
Playing with each other's deepest vulnerability?
That this is all we know?
So this is how it's gonna stay?
I think I
Would rather
Remember how it was and go our separate ways.
I don't feel anything
Unless we are living and dying for each other
Every second of our lives.

Everything
You thought that it would be,
Everything
You thought you were living for is completely fucked.
This is no place to be.
If we don't get out of here right now,
We're just gonna end up drunk, fucking,
and fighting and working machines.
If I have another cigarette,
If I drink another beer,
Sit quiet another time when I should've said
"Oh, this is too much.
There are things I never wanted to be."
This ship has sprung a leak
And I'll be damned if I'm going down with it.
Still breathing at any cost.

Tell me how could you compromise
Yourself like this?
Tell me how could you blame anyone else
When you aren't really committed?
Tell me where was your head
When you broke that promise to yourself,
The one where you don't forget
Every life lesson that happend before your eyes
So you don't wake up to regret she's gone years away?
You had hopes and dreams of a day
Where everything, everything, everything would come together,
You wouldn't have to be so scared.

Are we just working till a day we decide we've had enough?
All along
We were strong enough
To be sick of it,
And put them back in their fucking place.
we never asked for this responsibility
We were never in this...
Together.

The reality that you know
Is just behind your idea
Of a society, security, and self.
Am I just fucked up?
'Cause I can't remember
The last time any of this made sense,
The last time I
Could stand up to myself.
Street faces all blend into one,
They ask for spare change.
Am I forgetting
What it looks like
From the other side?
Have I forgotten where I've come from?

Are we just working till a day we decide we've had enough?
All along
We were strong enough
To be sick of it,
And put them back in their fucking place.
we never asked for this responsibility
We were never in this...
Together...

We're all presidents,
We're all congressmen,
We're all cops
In waiting.
We're the workers of the world.
There is the elite and the dispossessed
And it's only about survival,
Who has skill to play the game
For all it's worth,
Reaching out for a scary kind of perfection.
Let's try to keep
As much emotion out of this
As possible.
Let's try not to remember any names.
We'll do it for our country,
For our people,
For a moral vision.
United, we'll make them remember
Our history,
Or how we like to be told...
How we like to be told,
And we rock,
Because it's us against them.
We found our own reasons to sing,
And it's so much less confusing
When lines are drawn like that,
When people are either consumers or revolutionaries,
Enemies or friends hanging on the fringes
Of the cogs in the system.
It's just about knowing where everyone stands.
All of a sudden,
People start talking about guns,
Talking like they're going to war
'Cause they found something to die for.
Start taking back what they stole;
Sure beats every other option,
But does it make a difference how we get it?
Well, do you really fucking get it?

We want a band that plays loud and hard every night
That doesn't care how many people are counted at the door
That would travel one million miles and ask for nothing more than a plate of food and a place to rest
They'd strike chords that cut like a knife
It would mean so much more than t-shirts or a ticket stub
They'd stop at nothing short of a massacre
Everyone would leave with the memory that there was no place else in the world
And this was where they always belonged
We would dance like no one was watching
With one fist in the air
Our arena just basements and bookstores across an underground America
With this fire we could light
Just gimme a scene where the music is free
And the beer is not the life of the party
There's no need to shit talk or impress
'Cause honesty and emotion are not looked down upon
And every promise that's made and bragged
is meant if not kept
We'd do it all because we have to, not because we know why
Beyond a gender, race, and class, we could find what really holds us back
Let's make everybody sing
That they are the beginning and ending of everything
That we all are stronger than everything they taught us that we should fear

Through the best of times,
Through the worst of times,
Through Nixon and through Bush,
Do you remember '36?
We went our seperate ways.
You fought for Stalin.
I fought for freedom.
You believe in authority.
I believe in myself.
I'm a molotov cocktail.
You're Dom Perignon.
Baby, what's that confused look in your eyes?
What I'm trying to say is that
I burn down buildings
While you sit on a shelf inside of them.
You call the cops
On the looters and piethrowers.
They call it class war,
I call it co-conspirators.

'Cause baby, I'm an anarchist,
You're a spineless liberal.
We marched together for the eight-hour day
And held hands in the streets of Seattle,
But when it came time to throw bricks
Through that Starbucks window,
You left me all alone.

You watched in awe at the red,
White, and blue on the fourth of july.
While those fireworks were exploding,
I was burning that fucker
And stringing my black flag high,
Eating the peanuts
That the parties have tossed you
In the back seat of your father's new Ford.
You believe in the ballot,
Believe in reform.
You have faith in the elephant and jackass,
And to you, solidarity's a four-letter word.
We're all hypocrites,
But you're a patriot.
You thought I was only joking
When I screamed "Kill Whitey!"
At the top of my lungs
At the cops in their cars
And the men in their suits.
No, I won't take your hand
And marry the State.

'Cause baby, I'm an anarchist,
You're a spineless liberal.
We marched together for the eight-hour day
And held hands in the streets of Seattle,
But when it came time to throw bricks
Through that Starbucks window,
You left me all alone.

Dear mother,
This is just survival.
Cannot promise your children everything,
But you would lie so they can sleep tonight.
Defeat tasted nothing like you said.
Still 22 days left till the end of the world.
My legacy was making you a man
For a justice I could not change.
This is one voice not to forget;
"Fight every fight like you can win;
An iron fisted champion,
An iron willed fuck up."

Can anybody tell me why God won't speak to me?
Why Jesus never called on me to part the fucking seas?
Why death is easier than living?
You can be almost anything
When you're on your fucking knees.
Not today,
Not my son,
Not my family,
Not while walking is still honest,
And you haven't given up on me.

Dear shithead,
This isn't happening;
The sky is really falling,
The paint's all made of lead,
There's asbestos in the walls,
Hell's coming to rip off the doors
To your priveleged heaven.
Do you want to love and feel it?
You can look but you can't taste it.
You can reach but you'll never have it.
We are untouchable;
Untouchable is something to be.

Can anybody tell me why God won't speak to me?
Why Jesus never called on me to part the fucking seas?
Why death is easier than living?
You can be almost anything
When you're on your fucking knees.
Not today,
Not my son,
Not my family,
Not while walking is still honest,
And you haven't given up on me,
And you haven't given up on me,
And you haven't forgotten me...

When you sleep,
No one is homeless.
When you sleep,
You can't feel the hunger.
When you sleep,
No one is lonely in a dream.
Without classes,
Without nations...
When you sleep,
She's standing there with open arms,
And one night could last forever,
And if you asked her,
She'd never let go,
And you'd stay forever...

And the sun's always rising
In the sky somewhere,
And if young hearts should explode
From all the lies they've been told...

Let the new night bring you peace
And the promise of tomorrow,
Where we can wake to a new beginning.
Tomorrow I'll all but have lost their faces;
My friends and family,
Memories of all we had
And the times we should have lived,
And tomorrow America just might fall apart.
Tomorrow, tell me,
Where will you wake up?
Beyond title, beyond these careers and laws,
Something more than borders on a map...

And the sun's always rising in the sky somewhere,
And if young hearts should explode
From all the lies they've been told...
To live through one night like this,
I would trade it for the silence...