The Shortest Straw

(album: ...And Justice For All - 1988)

Suspicion is your name
Your honesty to blame
Put dignity to shame
Dishonor
Witchhunt, modern day
Determining decay
The blatant disarray
Disfigure
The public eye's disgrace
Defying common place
Unending paper chase
Unending

Deafening
Painstaking
Reckoning
This vertigo it doth bring

Shortest straw
Challenge liberty
Downed by law
Live in infamy
Rub you raw
Witchhunt riding through
Shortest straw
The shortest straw has been pulled for you

Pulled for you
Shortest straw
Pulled for you
Shortest straw
Pulled for you
Shortest straw
The shortest straw has been pulled for you

The accusations fly
Discrimination, why?
Your inner self to die
Intruding
Doubt sunk itself in you
Its teeth and talons through
You're living Catch-22
Deluding
A mass hysteria
A megalomania
Reveal dementia
Reveal

Secretly
Silently
Certainly
In vertigo you will be

Shortest straw
Challenge liberty
Downed by law
Live in infamy
Rub you raw
Witchhunt riding through
Shortest straw
This shortest straw has been pulled for you

Pulled for you
Shortest straw
Pulled for you
Shortest straw
Pulled for you
Shortest straw
Shortest straw has been pulled for you
Shortest straw
Pulled for you
Shortest straw
Pulled for you
Shortest straw
Pulled for you
Shortest straw
Shortest straw has been pulled for you

Behind you, hands are tied
Your being, ostracized
Your hell is multiplied
Upending
The fallout has begun
Oppressive damage done
Your many turned to none
To nothing
You're reaching your nadir
Your will has disappeared
The lie is crystal clear
Defending

Channels red
One word said
Blacklisted
With vertigo make you dead

Shortest straw
Challenge liberty
Downed by law
Live in infamy
Rub you raw
Witchhunt riding through
Shortest straw
The shortest straw has been pulled for you
Pulled for you