Matthew Ryan

Lyrics

This is the Hill
Written and Performed by Matthew Ryan
Copyright Plastic Violin/BMI 2011

Just go about your business
Just go about your lives
In a fog of constant car chase
Under gray metal skies

While there's a bomb in the heartland
And then there's trouble on the coast
And there's a very clean boot
On everyone's throat

The banks, the cons, the pirates
The inconceivable greed
While workers fade and howl like phantoms
And farmland turns to dust and weed

I was born in Pennsylvania
By the gas fires and river bank
My grandfather died of emphysema
In World War Two, he drove a tank

And I remember how his blue eyes
Got narrow as he spoke
And he said, "I'll take the enemies we knew any day,
Over the enemies you'll know"

And I remember at one time thinking
That the hearts of men are good
And if we should be overcome by darkness
We'll do exactly what we should

But then there was 9/11
And then there was Shock and Awe
And that ruthless empire up on Wall Street
Made peasants of us all

But it was nothing new
It had been building for a while
Sometimes I just sit and wonder
What happened to the president's smile?

Yeah I'm militant about the future
And I'm militant about hope
And I'm militant about reason
But these things are endangered you know?
And I'm passionate about us
And I'm passionate about them
And I'm passionate about education
and the human rights of all men
And I believe in glowing cities
An open window in every room
And I believe in brotherhood
So I believe in you

Well there's a growing hum of chaos
People dying where they sleep
With a flash of light in the dead of night
That's no fair fight
You can try to rationalize
But that's not war
And it's certainly not peace
Huh? huh?

This is the hill
This is the stand
This is the last hill
So never again
So never again