Bad Religion

carry out; ensure observance of laws and rules

I'm a member of a growing populace

We enforce our popularity

There are things that seem to pull us under, and

unpredictable; liable to sudden unpredictable change

Just a part of the scene

With mercurial smile and incurable style

She was only a dream

picture; show in, or as in, a picture

The fox-stained leaves of civilization

Depict a stark repeat

It's always a flaw in reasoning

limitation; an attribute that must be met or that fits a person for something

Even though you remain determined to be opposed

Admittance requires no qualifications

It's where everyone has been, and where everybody goes

give up; do without or cease to hold or adhere to

It's been around for many a year, so polish up your granddad's gear

And shake, shake, shake with fear, waive your rights like you just don't care

Anyone can do it, it's easy if you dare

sympathetic; showing empathy or ready comprehension of others’ states

And are proud of intellectual poverty

I'd like to be empathetic but I can't

The jeopardy is too great to make a stand

wise; acutely insightful and wise

Graduated mentors stroll in marbled brick porticoes

In sagacious dialogue, they despise their average ways

Betraying pomp and discipline, they mold their institution

unfair opinion; a partiality that prevents objective consideration of an issue or situation

I ain't superstitious, but hey, do you know a good exorcist?

Despite darker tendencies, I've always had a strong bias to exist

And though recent developments seem like bad news for humanity

combination; the process of producing a chemical compound

The roads you take, the friends you make, and those you throw away

The method is a simple synthesis of the past and present state

You never lose if the path you choose is one you can easily navigate

mild; not dangerous to health; not recurrent or progressive (especially of a tumor)

All promises become a lie

All thats benign corrupts in time

(The fallacy)

possible; capable of being done with means at hand and circumstances as they are

And the verdict won't be kind

'Cause they're desperate for a viable alternative

Take a stance (take a stance), the resist stance

thorough; characterized by extreme care and great effort

How can you care anymore?

It's a dangerous slip, a conscientious shift

The spirit of resistance, you gotta hold your grip

arrogant; creating an appearance of (often undeserved) importance or distinction

A debt for all mankind

These haughty mental shackles make us blind

To what is really right (go!)

throw away; give, sell, or transfer to another

Like it or not, I'm all you've got

Dispose when I'm shot

Just don't sell me short, oh

party member; a fervent and even militant proponent of something

None willing to lend charity, just exercise their

Shades of truth and partisan conventions

Shades of truth between disparate lines

personal; taking place within the mind and modified by individual bias

Which version of freedom reigns

If everything is subjective

Then what good is truth anyway?

government; the organization that is the governing authority of a political unit

And a tightly constrained definition of who is free

Old regime, smoke of history

Liberty still wafting in the breeze

worldly; someone who is not a clergyman or a professional person

An adventure in secular morality

Shouldn't be an insurrection to us all

expressive; a pronoun that points out an intended referent

And I don't remember hearin' how Moses reacted when the innocent first born sons lay dead

Well, I guess God was a lot more demonstrative back when he flamboyantly parted the sea

Now everybody's prayin'

build; make by combining materials and parts

I won't resign before the struggle ends

So I'll construct this sound defense

♪

keen; having keenness and forcefulness and penetration in thought, expression, or intellect

Sparkled promises paved with pathos and hysteria

Trenchant, weary native sons

(Step back) step back and see the damage done

debt; the property of being an amount by which something is less than expected or required

♪

Deficit and depravation

In the wake of desperation

support; support and strengthen

A plunder of the third world

Any wretched ploy that bolsters our economy

I ain't no blind supporter

complaint; express grief verbally

(It's easy) to confuse grand design with life's repercussions

Lament not your vanquished fantasy

It's only destiny

give up; leave (a job, post, or position) voluntarily

People blow their minds

They choose to resign

This deformed society is part of a design

breed; transmit from one generation to the next

The black turns green, black turns green

Separate, evaluate, and cultivate, and propagate

The master's dream, master's dream

condemn; express strong disapproval of

And when the joke of our centrality is upon us

Grovel and decry

Our vanity

trickery; the use of tricks to deceive someone (usually to extract money from them)

And if it ever gets here, you'll be offended, too

'Cause you cannot distinguish chicanery from truth

See, it's only entertainment

limited; bounded or limited in magnitude or spatial or temporal extent

What should I celebrate

Given finite means and a penchant to depreciate?

How can I still avow

countless; too numerous to be counted

I heard them say that the meek shall reign on earth

Phantasmal myriads of sane bucolic birth

I've seen the rapture in a starving baby's eyes

provocation; any stimulating information or event; acts to arouse action

But the saddest thing of all eludes discovery

The stimulus for this somber ceremony

Requiem

divide; a vertical structure that divides (as a wall divides one room from another)

No apparition

A partition from the host

A temple of cognition

agreement; agreement in the judgment or opinion reached by a group as a whole

Maybe you've seen the light

But you know that popular consensus doesn't make it right

Nothing can go on while forever increasing

approve; give sanction to

When mother nation, blood and religion

Sanction killing upon the Fields of Mars

High above the Fields of Mars

improve; improve or perfect by pruning or polishing

Looking back I'm off the tracks more times than I recognize

Mistakes are another opportunity to refine

My heart is not a cold cauldron of proof

difference; inequality or difference in some respect

To know what we're bound to face

The level of disparity, the common man

The manner of destruction of the native land

nearness; the property of being close together

♪

Recognition by proximity

And a brand new face

outside; on or near an edge or constituting an outer boundary; the outer area

Reflects the lowest mark of our progress

And the few who ride peripheral

Maintain subtle advantage

huge fire; a very intense and uncontrolled fire

Hey, Moral Soldier, you've got righteous proclamation

And precious tomes to fuel your pulpy conflagrations

And I wanna conquer the world

persistent; good at remembering

But what good is something if you can't have it until you die?

Desperate, tenacious, clinging like a grain of sand

Watching its foundation wash away, wash away

ageless; continuing forever or indefinitely

Propelled by a ghost force that never shows his face

Increase the ante of this perpetual pace

It's the fast life, there's nothing I can do

award; a tangible symbol signifying approval or distinction

Let's gather round the carcass of the old deflated beast

We've seen it through the accolades and rested in its lea

Syntactic is our elegance, incisive our disease

restriction; the state of being physically constrained

There and back I never wait for a confident reply

Truth is stark and leaves its mark as limited constraints

And the most difficult part is accepting what the future may bring

limitation; the act of controlling by restraining someone or something

It's the primary rule, you gotta wanna be fooled

It's our daunted restraint that keeps us silent in shame

It's our nature to be adversarial and free

blame; express strong disapproval of; deplore

We all fall down, all fall down

Deprecate, repudiate, ameliorate, adjudicate

The wisdom found, wisdom found

bargain; discuss the terms of an arrangement

Conserve life, make it right

Kill the hate, negotiate

There'll be a way

assist; make easier

Delegate, facilitate, investigate, and obviate

The black turns green, black turns green

heroic poem; a long narrative poem telling of a hero’s deeds

Just a sample of carbon-based wastage

Just a fucking tragic epic of you and I

servile; attempting to win favor from influential people by flattery

They bombard us every day

The masses are obsequious

Contented in their sleep

ardent; characterized by intense emotion

We've nestled in its hollow, and we've suckled at its breast

Grandiloquent in our attitude, impassioned yet inept

Frivolous gavel our design and ludicrous our threat

shame; changing to a lower state (a less respected state)

♪

Extinction, degradation, the natural outcomes of our ordered lives

Power, motivation, temporary fixtures for which we strive

fellow worker; an associate that one works with

That he had thought he found the answer, and he was quick to write his revelation

But as they were scrutinized, in his colleagues' eyes he soon became a mockery

Don't tell me about the answer 'cause then another one will come along soon

speech; a speech that is open to the public

Hope is pointless when you're stuck in the trawl

Fuck the freshman lectures and brandishments

They just betray impoverished accomplishments

attraction; (immunology) the attraction between an antigen and an antibody

You took the most abundant, smallest bits of matter

And you instilled them with affinity

And then you stratified accumulations

expansion; growth by the rapid multiplication of parts

Culture was the seed of proliferation, but it's gotten melded

Into an inharmonic whole to an inharmonic whole

lack; an acute insufficiency

It's progress, 'til there's nothing left to gain

As the dearth of new ideas makes us wallow in our shame

So before you go, contribute more

kind; intending or showing kindness

And you sit there and watch the world go around

From your pseudo-benevolent vantage point

While we who've been left to pick up after you

seeming; clearly revealed to the mind or the senses or judgment

Until one day I saw how miserably things really are

All fantastic images, they only are apparent

Propagated just by hope, and then, desire to share it

extensive; widely circulated or diffused

We're widespread and well fed the earth's rotating fate is in our head, oh yeah

We're dominant and prominent and our deity's omnipotent, oh yeah

abrupt; brief and to the point; effectively cut short

Have you ever heard yourself, the orbit that you are in?

The terse, oppressive blanket that's instilled here by our spin

It's misery and famine, it's a force we cannot see

wise; a mentor in spiritual and philosophical topics who is renowned for profound wisdom

I could be the archetype, a credit to the genotype, re-program your mind

But the storybook sages fill their pages

Hiding from the warming sun

random; based on individual preference or impulse

And the halcyon fields of opportunity turn out to be

Consensual and arbitrary

♪

notice; to become aware of through the senses

So here we are again to experience the bitter, scalding end

And we're the only ones who can perceive it.

But others sing of beauty and the story that's unfolded

true or real; well grounded in logic or truth or having legal force

What the world needs now is some answers to our problems

We can't buy more time 'cause our tender isn't valid

If your soul needs love, you can get consoled by pity

moral principle; the principles of right and wrong

Eradicate but vindicate as progress creeps along

Puritan work ethic maintains its subconscious edge

As old glory maintains your consciousness

justify; show to be right by providing justification or proof

Hey, sit down and listen and they'll tell you when you're wrong

Eradicate but vindicate as progress creeps along

Puritan work ethic maintains its subconscious edge

withdrawn; withdrawn from society; seeking solitude

Your home office is the window to your world, and the heart of your social life

Such reclusive behavior helps clear the roads and public works from overburden

Like the lower, middle class and others who depend shamelessly on their government

deep; showing intellectual penetration or emotional depth

He's the latest superhero with powers so profound

He can leap a dotted line in just a single bound

model; systematic arrangement of all the inflected forms of a word

Keep yourself in line, there's no design

The new paradigm is crisis time

♪

odorous; serving to bring to mind

♪

There's a panther wild and proud behind the doors of a redolent cage

And an undeveloped intellect filled with impotent and static rage

prevent; keep from happening or arising; make impossible

Early to bed and early to rise

Precludes you from seeing the most brilliant starry nights

Sticks and stones can break bones, words can't really hurt

clumsy; not elegant or graceful in expression

We've nestled in its hollow, and we've suckled at its breast

Grandiloquent in our attitude, impassioned yet inept

Frivolous gavel our design and ludicrous our threat