1. |
The Countdown's Begun
02:23
|
|||
Doomsday hour draws near
People cower in fear
Awaiting the moment when everything they know will turn to dust
The countdown’s begun
How many days?
How many years?
Until they decide to blow us all off the face of the planet?
The countdown’s begun
Things turn to dust
|
||||
2. |
Ice Storm
03:34
|
|||
Beneath the highway, behind the Speedway
That’s where you can find me
Look anytime and I’ll be there
Beyond the red sun, the rotting podium
The weather’s odd for this time of year
Ice storm
Blue is the deepest...
Blue is the deepest of colors
The ice wall now shifting
Weather is getting weirder
Ice storm
|
||||
3. |
Agony
03:12
|
|||
I... I feel so alone
Please... pick up the telephone
I... am driving in my car
The sky tonight is littered with more than stars
Look at me and you will see
I’m in agony
I smell smoke, I think the radio is broke
I’m in agony
I’m... struggling to conceive
My mind fills with childhood memories
As a boy I cried, I wanted a toy missile
In retrospect it all seems so trivial
I smell the burning flesh of everyone I ever met
I’m in agony
And now it seems that life is but a dream
I’m in agony
Look at me and you will see
I’m in agony
And now it seems that life is but a dream
I’m in agony
|
||||
4. |
China White
03:13
|
|||
I’ve seen mothers in mourning
Under the silver light of morning
The coroner said “another dead kid”
The newspaper read “it’s epidemic”
All right, sleep tight, China White
Tell me how does it differ
This flower, from say, the rose of England?
To protect the fields men are slaughtered
In the opium den the sad man sells his daughter
All right, sleep tight, China White
Here In America’s wastelands
There’s total devastation, man
It can be hard to find something to live for
Dope gives the kids something to die for
They’re giving the kids something to die for
All right, sleep tight, China Wte
|
||||
5. |
You Can't Go Home Again
05:50
|
|||
Walking alone across a darkened land that once was home
Rehearsing memories as the sky opens up
Rain on the driest day of July
And a shadow falls over the city
And a shadow crawls across the land
A shadow’s darkening the spaces we once occupied
A shadow’s fallen over you and I
Black curtains obscure a hole in the ground
An open grave on 2nd Avenue
It once was a place for the tribe to gather
Now it’s not even a parking lot
Dark money pollutes the public sphere
As greedy hands reach out to take what once was ours
Destroying the very host that attracted these parasites
Alright
They sing on blissfully
Ignorant of their malignant influence
Reveling drunkenly in their new colonies
I sing on, too
I sing a farewell song, a love song, a war song
This is my city, damn you all to Hell
|
||||
6. |
||||
Why in movies do actors always say “that’s interesting?”
Are actors only interested when in the cinematic setting?
Where the detective floats through the dark of an alley
Past assorted underworld personalities
Entering the inescapable possibility that you are and I would board the same train
In lieu of responsibility we decide to play the blame game
Soundtrack to the picture of the same name
We chalk it up to coincidence
And life just being like that sometimes I guess
Ever seem some props are out of place and don’t make sense?
I know it sounds crazy but I think it’s me behind the lens
I think, I think that something’s wrong
Maybe I’m dead and my mind’s still hanging on
How could that be? Well you see, that depends
I’ve seen the movie but can't remember how it ends
The inescapable possibility of you and I boarding the same train
In lieu of responsibility we decide to play the blame game
Soundtrack to the picture of the same name
The devil and I were down on Berkowitz and Vine
We took a glimpse inside the city’s artificial mind
Inside the minds that think, inside the hearts that love
Into engines of oppression, greased by human blood
We gazed into the abattoir as beasts suffered in pain
We heard the soundtrack to the picture of the same name
It was a different time, a different place back then
When we were wolves living in the world of men
The inescapable possibility that you and I could board the same train
In lieu of responsibility we decide to play the blame game
Soundtrack to the picture of the same name
Tarzan’s son and I were swinging from a vine
We took a glimpse inside the jungle’s psychotropic mind
Vacation time, he asked the missus “what’s the verdict?”
Slam dancing at the Idlewood, sunbathing in the Arctic?
Without her makeup though, he could no longer see her
Her ghost was a reflection of life in the urban arena
The soundtrack is the sound of an atomic bomb
And a scream into the wind, “where has everybody gone?”
The inescapable possibility that you and I would board the same train
In lieu of responsibility we decide to play the blame game
Soundtrack to the picture of the same name
|
||||
7. |
Dreams of the Damned
03:40
|
|||
In the West, plates are filled with meat and cheese and bread
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world some are starving, some are dead
One child is fat and healthy, while the other fends off flies
One visits a Chuck E. Cheese, the other withers away and dies
One gives their confirmation to the one true faith
The priest smiles at the young boys, the bigot justifies his hate
The altar boys do their duty, the thinker contemplates
Life passes by the parishioners; a life of servitude, what a waste
One child lives a nightmare, the other dreams a dream
Dreaming of a fair world, but the reality is much more obscene
Their worlds collide as either side is blown into the past
The countdown’s begun and everyone will perish in the blast
If not in the initial blast then in the coming frost
Courtesy of the Saturday night fuhrer and his chemical holocaust
A flash of red, so many dead, ice falls from the earth’s new sun
As snowflake-like particles come to rest inside our lungs
If the future appears brighter, it’s because it glows with radiation
And if warheads were food they could end world hunger and starvation
The agents of suffering are foaming at the mouth, you see
At the thought of leaving millions of and souls writhing in agony
They don’t really care about us
They only want we have to give
Yet still we let them take our lives
Our lives, we have but one life to live
The holy man blesses the warhead with a kiss upon its nose
He’s been a missile fan since God was a man, he likes to see them explode
He’s been lurking in the background of many of the wars of men
He gave microwaves to the TV gen to heat the Cold War up again
Which brings us to the year the gods slept, two thousand and eighteen
Where World War 3 is our reality
Life passes by in a cloud of dust so thick it makes you choke
Close your eyes and smile at the punchline of the final joke
One child lives a nightmare, another dreams a dream
Dreaming of a fair world but the reality is much more obscene
The priest, the bomb are magic wands to keep you content
With the barbed-wire fence of obedience
Our dreams are balloons floating off into the sky
We toil in shadow while life passes you by
|
||||
8. |
Swimming with Boys
03:29
|
|||
It was a lad’s thing
A game where only boys could play
Sometimes it was frightening
But it kept the teenage blues at bay
Muscles flexed in the moonlight
Rival forces geared up for a clash
Missile boys thought it alright
If the world ended in atomic flash
With their minds so filled with void
I always liked swimming with boys
Swimming with boys
War games on the playset
Led to violence in the streets
We were trapped in a mindset
We were soldier dolls fighting in the summer heat
We scoffed at the shark fins
And danced to the sound of animal noise
We swam to the island of twins
And dove head first into the void
In the pools so dark and cold
Like the men who run this world
Swimming with boys
Kindness and nurturing are weakness
Real men swim in the deep end
Real men go off the deep end
|
||||
9. |
War on the Underground
02:29
|
|||
Vicious armies of right-wing rebels
Are out on the streets, but so are their rivals
Sharp as shocks shot from subway rails
With switchblade knives and gasoline cocktails
Greased-out would-be guitar gangsters
Clash with black-clad bands of merry pranksters
The kids at home, they think it’s neat
They’re choosing sides--they’ll be out there next week
War on the underground
Masked-up miscreants and chrome-dome fash
Meet in the underworld where cultures clash
There’s new frontiers with new games to play
Politics define the gangs of today
War on the underground
Mixed-up kids are in the mix
Somewhere in the tumbling clouds of boots and fists
So many ideologies at play
Politics define the gangs of today
War on the underground
|
||||
10. |
The Ghost of Bakunin
07:23
|
|||
As the sun cut the through the haze
On the morning of the final day
I put on my breathing mask and went out to see what I could see
A dead dog lying in the square
Toxins were caked in its matted hair
I saw man in tattered suits trying to sell their shoes
I heard one of them say:
“I’ve got to make one more sale today”
But the money was all worthless then anyway
The ghost of Bakunin played the piano
And we drank like we were old friends
And I sang an old ballad as I watched it all burning
And I knew it was truly the end
I left the square and walked
Down to the barbed-wire at the edge of town
Outside stood rows of soldiers
With mismatched uniforms stained with blood
Only a few had guns, the rest just had pipes and knives and clubs
The commander said “move out” and they went trudging off through the mud
I heard one of them say:
“I don’t really know who we're fighting today
But a soldier is what I am anyway”
As evening time drew near
I followed a street along a lonely pier
I smelt the smell of acrid smoke and heard the sound of an angry mob
They had set some shops ablaze
Smoke just thickening in the toxic haze
A police car was overturned, an injured man called out to God
I heard that old man say:
“Why didn’t our leaders save the day?”
Then he weakly tossed a brick as I walked away
As the sun began to set
I found my way out through a hole in the fence
I climbed up on a hill and watched the river go floating by
A crow landed in a dying tree
And seeing something still wild comforted me
I took off my breathing mask and turned my face to the darkening sky
And I heard my own voice say:
“I hope this world can recover once we’ve gone away”
Then I looked down and saw the city all in flames
And all of your guns can’t save you now
And your prayers can’t save you now
And we did this to ourselves
The ghost of Bakunin played the piano
And we drank like we were old friends
And I sang an old ballad as I watched it all burning
And I knew it was truly the end
The end
|
Silence Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Silence fuses overtly political peace punk with darker and more melodic post-punk sounds. The band was formed in Pittsburgh, PA in 2013. They released their debut LP, The Deafening Sound of Absolutely Nothing on Profane Existence Records in 2016.
Streaming and Download help
If you like Silence, you may also like:
Bandcamp Daily your guide to the world of Bandcamp