Out Of Style Tragedy

(album: Shook - 2023)

Here is the world
Re-mapped by Accuser
A frenzy of eschatological rage and delight
Simulated revenge
Lighthearted violence
Sexual retribution
Divine assault
Pornographic sanctity
Casual blasphemy
Sacred offense
Unearned irreverence

Listen for the sound

The Serpent's falling soon
Six silver strings are crying
Out to a blood red moon
And I held your crown up higher
While they sang their tune
And you held me through the fire
But there's not much left to do now but...watch it burn

Just an out of style tragedy

Stood in front an idol of stone
By the Gladbeck hostage school of journalism
Ten minutes to halftime a horrified nation looks on
The indestructible compact disc played with lasers
Threaten records and tapes with obsolescence
Boy genius, grown old, is dead
Meanwhile the Anti-Germans return again to the bloodland
Banging pots and pans
Shouting "black" at the kettle
Hostages freed while jets explode across the seven seas
30 Italians, 5 Belgians and a Frenchman sacrificed their lives to The Sun
They prefer a song with a subtle or obvious message
For the rioting and songs to be down police drop the bombs
The community burns for the mayor to make Goode on his promises
They're all forced to move then they're all forced to choose which of the Cokes is the real thing now
A masterful colorist rains down and falls with a prince's tide
Eulogizing and lionizing the late, great Robert Welch
Who saw the future king of America claim his 6 thrones to office
All the special effects flicks foreclose on foreign films
They'd been wiser to find a better home for their "Boo's"
Had they chosen to enter the Temple of Doom
A more grotesque representation of representation
Than Dante's capital could turn out in 666 rotations
And ever since the '60's hair has been the dominant form of social protest
In both nation state birthdays and missile day parades
This endangered bird of prey a blasphemed incarnate of a shutter god
It squanders geographical knowledge
Its machines take power like a Hollywood spectacle
Just an out of style tragedy
Once again a gunman kills twenty in a McDonald's crowd
Married with children with three guns in Southern California
Just an out-of-style tragedy
Bettered by the day some were children
But it's a gaping wound that bleeds profit
Implicit pipelines richer than silver, blood or oil
There are other modes of fashion that they want to arrest
The collaborationist opposition to wait for Godot
Or the next Mondale, Ferraro, Dukakis, Howard Dean
Clinton, or Joe Biden to save them
Or set them free
Or else they burn bitter meats
And mortar block
Try to appease the twelve apostles of European neoliberal thought
Just an out of style tragedy