Soviet Television - Swordplay

Ever since the beginning, there been no place for critics

Except for maybe in jail cells with failed academics

Schizophrenic lieutenants

Who will be finally ready to break bread when the war drum bangs

It’s all pain and panic and «bordel «In the center of the mecca that the kingdom claims

An unhitched carousel hell ride in the city

Ain’t no quiet type of living in the modern age

Get a paycheck

Get another every other Friday

Recirculate it and celebrate it

Take in what they say and imitate it

Cos the mind of the citizen manipulated

Eyes fixated

On a pixelated broadcast

Pass the remote control

A Soviet television, change the channel

That, or misinterpret it a little bit

Go along with it.

Ya fall in love with it

Ya take the message in and send a letter bomb with it

Repetition is a well-known tactic

Get a pat on the back, and you’re a great success

Maybe you’ll be lucky with them DC think tanks

Sweepstakes contests and Wi-Fi access

Would you bottle up the dream.

Distribute it to the masses

Prize winners, see the PDF attachments

Foreclosed homes, World of Warcraft

Red-lined zones, and a crack epidemic

Voter ID laws, HIV, food deserts

And a ghetto with no one to represent it but

A Kremlin helipad-imported poppy crop

A vacay in Kiev with a Gorbachov

Marxist starter kit sold at every corner shop

End up on some martyr shit and listen to the mortar pop pop

Sirens caterwauling over top of search lights on the prison wall crawling

Cops on dirt bikes are all out looking for comrades

So you better not call em

To them, you’re an animal

A light dims

There’s a cattle prod in the pen reminding you of your existence

Like claustrophobes in a crowded hallway

Empty people passing by

Try not to think about it

Maybe dream about it

The nightmare gets real when you read about it

It’s just a measure of what a stomach can take

Cos politics is a matter of taste

Take it in time with the dissidents

Unimpressed with the bulletproof vest strapped chests of the militants

And the best of Samaritans

See the drug cartels in the hearts of Americans

So, I take control of the narrative

An intern at ten dollars an hour could take care of it

Most folks wouldn’t know the quote from a Nickelodeon show

Cloaked in irrelevance

Go settle in

Clock in. Clock out

Go on and get a stomach full of medicine

Reminisce of sitting in a classroom memorizing foreign propaganda

It’s all gone in an instant

In a minute, you’ll be floating over top of PBS antennas

I’ll be singing in the halls of the Senate

I’ll show you when I smile for the cameras

My time dilated

In the end, we’ll be spinning on a pin

And waiting to be annihilated

I thank god at least that it’s a slow process set in the place

And it’s a slow process set in place

And it’s a slow process set in place

A very slow process set in place

A very slow process set in place

And we’ve been setting the pace

In this sedentary position we’re brought up in

To ponder the commercial breaks

Meanwhile, my reading list just keeps on building