Burn It Down

There once was a powerful nation Imagined by escaped refugees Built on backs of stolen people And their children for centuries And now this City on a Hill Can't outrun its may ills By forgetting its own history So a man took his place at the pulpit Spitting fire, fear, and fallacy and foe Found a congregation fertile With violent fragile souls He declared himself a king Now says a lot of stupid things With masses cheering at his vertigo With audacity that only comes with lying Drinking his own name like cheap, diluted wine Claim god and country and for the people With the fiction of the Good old Days enshrined With amphibious lips he frowns "Drain the swamp, burn it down" Well sir, that's a concept I can get behind But if we burn it down, down, down Can we build it back up from the bottom Not for fear or fighting But for love So what now, what happens after insurrection? The foundation and the scaffolding exposed No patriots hiding in the shadows Just an emperor without his clothes That which clarifies can sting Without Truth, no unity Can make poetry from our broken prose But if we burn it down, down, down Can we build it back up from the bottom Not for fear or fighting But for love But for love But for love But for love If we burn it down, down, down Can we build it back up from the bottom Not for fear or fighting But for love But for love