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This Is How I'm Gonna Live My Life

from Can't Turn Back by Ryan Harvey

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lyrics

LIVE MY LIFE

Oh the tired old words of the television preachers
Sooth the tired wasted minds of retired suburban workers
Drown out the adventures planned by inspired dreamers
Bounce off the walls of shopping malls that guide us to our purchases
I wonder where it comes from? Is it greed or is it anger?
A hatred born from a culturally taught fear of "the stranger"?
Or the slow creep of history, manifesting as we grow
Or self-hatred externalized to feed a macho ego
These walls that close around us, we keep them close inside us
We learn to find comfort in the limits they provide us
To chant down or ignore those who step to break the silence
To cheer those we pay to maintain an downward flow of violence
Lean on the flag when it's time to go to war again
Find comfort in the fact that you''ll probably never feel the burden
Of these wars, of these laws, of these halls deprived of justice
Ignore the biased failures of the policies before us
Link your life up on this long chain of debt and deprivation
And join the rats racing towards twisted affirmation
Rise for the the "honorable," die for the honor
Place your right hand over your heart and surrender

Is this how you're gonna live your life?

Let me stand beside the ones who stand to fight for freedom
For the world that they envision, free from poverty and racism
Where no journey is stalled by separation walls and borders
Where the hard work of the long-ignored is honored and rewarded
I wonder where it comes from? Is it love or is it anger?
A faith and a compassion in the value of a "stranger"?
Or education lined with an indignant sense of reason
Or a hard-built up rage manifesting as action
These spaces that we build. we must build together
With tools that we can use to empower one another
So our words and our attempts serve to breed a generation
That will risk more than the one before to bring about the changes
I sing my song to instigate rebellion
To urge an escalation through strategic intervention
For the young, for the old, for the ones who sit in cages
For the tired and depressed, stressed from the turning of the pages
Keeping one hand on hope and one hand on reality
To ground my inspiration in the sadness that surrounds me
I am in the world to change the world
My dreams are big, and I will work to make them possible

This is how I'm gonna live my life

credits

from Can't Turn Back, released May 15, 2012

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Ryan Harvey Baltimore, Maryland

Folk singer, writer, activist, and co-owner of Firebrand Records.

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