Human Bricks by David Bowden


Song Lyrics


Mute by David Bowden

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Human Bricks
by David Bowden

Album: Mute


When I let my eyes glide
over the pastures of city skies
and the plenteous hillsides
of palm trees and plastic surgery,
all I really see are the pyramids.
I see Egypt's slaves building golden graves
for infant gods out of olden veins
they let bleed like their blistered knees
capsizing under heavy bricks they build for fabled kings.
Now in this modern day Promised Land that was
told like a lie, where demand is our language
and Pharaoh supplies, I look back to Israel's time.

When they were slaves to the whip,
enslaved by the bricks to give reign to the name
that was flicking its wrist.
Now the Sphinx has crossed seas,
the desert sand dunes whisk against our 12th story windows,
and we're back in Egypt during the tyranny
of slavery.

Only we aren't the ones packing the mud,
hauling the straw,
watching our son be beaten as he crawls.
We are the spectators, the participators, the equality eradicators.
We are the ones cracking the whip and laying the kicks,
because no one is asking who's building the bricks.

And I already know what will happen if we don't start asking why,
because God sent the plagues when he heard the oppressed cry.
So what will be the cost of our Western dreams?
Is it just our first born sons dying for killing to protect worthless things?
The lamb has already been selected and killed,
its blood painted over the door,
we are just outside the house looking for more.

What kind of whip do we crack
on the backs of our slaves abroad who produce,
as well as those domestic ones living off of our refuse?
Is your whip slipped on your feet?
Sipped on or steeped?
Shipped from ghetto crypts to ego tripped main streets?
Is your whip whipped up fried up in the kitchen
where you scramble and fry what others slaved to provide?
But I guess when empires on your side,
and the bricks form proclamations
to your gods ostentatious pride,
who's really going to stop pretending their slaves don't exist?

Pharaoh's name has changed from Ra, to God.
But I think this fraud-god we threw in our pledge,
wrote on our notes, and stamped on our heads
is no more like a false idol cast in Technicolor instead of Gold.
And he's worshiped in primetime.
From 9 to 5 and from 9 to bed.
We pray to our god like a drive-thru, order off the value meal to get lied to.
We pay for sacraments like a cable bill,
and he takes 6 or 7 or 8 off the top to accomplish his holy will.
And we won't stop funding our god because he cares for us,
and gives us a house, a 401(k), and lots and lots of
nuclear steroids we juice on to flex our veins
and muscles at our slaves
when they try to abstain
from our societal rape.

After all, we are our god's chosen children because we are our own god's,
birthing successor's to our own rods
who will live in our fantastic facades
built by our slaves born on the wrong sods.

Slavery and Oppression are not extinct.
They have just become more efficient.

We have multiplied the work force of the new world slave trade,
and we don't even need ships anymore.
Just ammo clip order forms,
CEOs from desert storm, atomic bombs,
Islamic qualms, and economic bonds to protect the norm,
and political camp pink slips for those seeking labor reform.

And sure, I know, you aren't killing anyone or
striking a child while he struggles to stitch up your Friday night outfit.
But a hit man only becomes lethal when he is receiving a paycheck.
And we sign off on them every day of the week.

We must stop funding the plantation owners,
the liquidation loaners,
the gas station groaners,
the inflation donors.

They treat our brothers like slaves,
our sisters like whores,
our mothers like graves,
while we fund them with war.
We cannot separate ourselves from the family of humanity.
Oppression will only end when we abandon the structure of
master and slave,
Pagan and Nave,
killer and brave,
needed and craved,
affluent and depraved,
free and enslaved.

A face must be painted for those who have been defaced.
Their identity sprayed on walls,
hung in halls,
and mourned in malls.

It's time to give them a hand instead of an arm,
a name instead of harm,
and to disarm
ourselves of the cotton bombs strapped to our backs
brought in from foreign farms.

May we join together to wear questions instead of name brands,
to grow goods instead of maimed lands,
and to purchase with justice to clean our red stained hands
We have to learn to put down our whips
by asking the question who's building the bricks.


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Related Albums by David Bowden


  1. Mute by David Bowden - 2010