Chronicles of a Collapse (feat. Marcello Vieira)

This is not a fairy tale, not a cautionary tale Just a chronicle of a collapse in all of its details It's the freedom that you sold. It's the freedom that we bought It's the stories of the lives of the people we forgot He was a 40-year-old army colonel and a dad Served his country in two wars, gave it everything he had Then one lovely summer day, at the height of his career He came to work to find out that his homeland disappeared That the medals he received, and the oath that he swore And the code by which he lived didn't matter anymore So he packed up all his things, and he drove himself back home And he sat there on the couch, sat there thinking all alone And he looked down at his hands. And he looked up at his gun And he thought - It's not the end, because he still had a son Well, the army fell apart, and he had no other skills Finding work can be quite hard for someone who's trained to kill He had picked up washing floors, so his family could eat All was well until he ran into some punk kids in the street They were bored and they were drunk. They were in the mood to play He said: I'm ‎a colonel, son, please get on out of my way Just a soldier on his own against some kids with a bat They had shattered every bone, and they left him there dead That's the freedom that you sold. That's the freedom that we bought That's the story of a life of somebody we forgot A physicist with a world name, he couldn't figure ‎out the math The university had not paid scientist salaries for months Of the research assistants that he had three left, one wound up dead There are riots on the streets each day. There are four hour lines for bread Equations blooming in his mind are so pristine and so right But he cannot afford to pay his bills. His wife cries every night He focuses on his research in a futile attempt to cope Though all his funding has been pulled. He cannot buy a microscope When the bus drivers went on strike the state had budget for their checks Yet the nuclear submarine research somehow fell through the cracks He doesn't know how to fight. He's no good at commerce or crime A foreign firm expressed an interest - he thought it was genuine So excited there is someone willing to discuss his work He talked. They listened, and they smiled, and they wrote down every word He had been brought up on ideals of human progress and world peace As the result, he sold nuclear secrets ‎to the terrorists That was not a fairy tale, not a cautionary tale Just the chronicles of a collapse in all of its details That's the freedom that you sold. That's the freedom that we bought That's the story of a life of somebody we forgot Her nickname was Babe. Me and her used to hang out after school She said: I wanna be a prostitute, because that shit is cool I asked her: Babe, you sure that's the sorta life you want to lead She shouted: Don't preach to me! I'm not your daughter, not a kid I didna ask for your advice, and I don't care what you think All of my friends are doing it, and they have cash and nicer things I'm sick and tired of being broke. I wanna be like everyone It's just a little bit of work. Besides, I can help out my mom I begged her: Babe, at least let me set you up at a nice hotel She laughed and told me to butt out, she could take care of herself She went and got her hair done. Red mini skirt and red high heels She tried so hard to imitate the hookers in the Western films This was in 1992, the year the Iron Curtain fell The government disintegrated. Streets descended into hell My parents yanked me out of the country to give me a better life She was thirteen. That was the last time I saw my best friend alive That was not a fairy tale, not a cautionary tale Just the chronicles of a collapse in all of its details