Bowling For Liberty

(album: Generation Gaming XVIII - 2019)

My days of youth were in the people's army
And I paid my dues under a legal mafia
The news could hardly cover Yugoslavia
Without looking down on us dudes surviving here
The warzone was a training ground
For the land of the free, never lay me down
But the land isn't free, better pay me now
'Cause you don't wanna see me when I throw my weight around
I never wait around, or set a date and count
No hype like when the game announced
Then when I came around the would be saying aloud
That I didn't belong, that I was lame, get out
But I've always done what I ain't allowed
You think a crowd of haters would dissuade me now?
You've only made me welcome to change the outcome
I take an ounce and then upgrade to pounds, uh

Foreign places, feel faceless
Starting over, leave no traces
I've seen things you couldn't imagine
Death of innocent women and children
Family will be there for each other
It gave me a new beginning
All was against me but I'm set free
New home, Liberty City

Came to a strange land
Alien with a game plan
To become a self-made made man
Power is ambidextrous, it'll change hands
Time is money and every dollar is a grain of sand
Slipping into my wallet, how do I plead?
It's simple your honor
I'm innocent of everything but pimping your momma

Depart from the dock and I start from the bottom
Like slaves that were traded and stopped picking cotton
Raise up and raze the construction that's stopping them
Burn, Nat Turner and Spartacus, chopping up
And while you're sat in the park, chatting
I'm carjacking ambulances, having a laugh, when I'm crashing them
No you can't have it back, I'm lacking the heart
Packing an actual arsenal in back of my fire truck
And I partook in every felony that you could write up
I push crime numbers in the city right up
The boldest agent couldn't solve the case
Until they're old and grey, by then I've rolled away
I'm in a stolen Sabre, feds are all in chase
But let me just drop by for a bowling date, yay!
Take a hike down memory lane
I got a strike looking like I'm ahead of the game, uh

Foreign places, feel faceless
Starting over, leave no traces
I've seen things you couldn't imagine
Death of innocent women and children
Family will be there for each other
It gave me a new beginning
All was against me but I'm set free
New home, Liberty City

Startred alone in the dark with a hope
Swimming with the loan sharks in the open
I keep afloat, heart open to omens that I'll see
A sign any moment, my cousin Roman
Bellic and me, we'll make a hell of a team
Together we'll leap to the American Dream
But as I climb the wall with a goal:
Ascend higher, decline and fall
Of the Roman Empire

Living in broker broke, amid the roaches
Roman roads are nowhere, close to as robust
As I'd hoped for, so I carve my own path
Pull up the weeds in the garden, mown grass
Remodel the landscape in my image
The minute hand's ticking till the time I finish
Rome wasn't built overnight, in five minutes
But have a look what I've done with the place, nice, innit?
Never turn your back, I might stick a knife in it
This is the kind of life advice I'm giving
'Cause this is the kind of life that I'm living
Never let it inhibit my drive or my mission
Never set a limit, still I get it did and done
Inside the time given, I ice you dry like nitrogen
I hide in plain sight defy your night vision
Avant-garde, make caviar rise from fried chicken

Foreign places, feel faceless
Starting over, leave no traces
I've seen things you couldn't imagine
Death of innocent women and children
Family will be there for each other
It gave me a new beginning
All was against me but I'm set free
New home, Liberty City