American Dreams - Flobots

The whole world is watching
The whole world is watching
Something in my family tree is rotten
Something in my family tree is rotten

Ancestors so grotesque
Clans of dest need to go West
Manifest breeds protest
10 million rest in peace below depths
Oh no, oh yes
No struggle, no progress
Bend the rules, run the jewels
40 acres and a mule and no less

Who claims to know best though?
Who’s trained to protect those?
Some of those who burn crosses
Also arraign and arrest those
Some of those current losses
This fiscal year are exceptional
They got more guns than death’s row
Make them disappear like presto

I wrote this rap to pray for another life cast away
Now that’s more settlement, cash to pay
But that won’t bring daddy back today
That’s just more petals at the grave
The moonlight saw that display
So what more can we do, my god
When there’s nothing left to say
Meet me at the gate and say kumbaya

Scheming for a way to stay up
Dreaming of the day I wake up
Dreaming of the day I wake up
Dreaming of the day I wake up
Dreaming of the day I wake up

Aye, Mom was a bloody-knuckled valedictorian
Papa was a comet from the quarry and tobacco fields
Cover me in notes of old hickory and moses
That cotton linen blends the benefits of forebidden yields
Black feet move without reservations
Our bodies walk the streets and we resume our occupations
And claims of common sense more cautious
Than Caucasian condiments
Black cowboys are real but they ain’t missing

Black avengers show up before the crowd’ll get pissed
When the milk goes as sour as a counterfeit kiss
We can still make a pound of biscuits, get some vision
Be the crowd of misfits, where the lyricists spit
The merits of the heretic is where the patriot lives
And we to hate to relive what it takes to forgive
Can’t forget what we did, better yet let’s amend
To protect next of kin by accepting our sins

Scheming for a way to stay up
Dreaming of the day I wake up
Dreaming of the day I wake up
Dreaming of the day I wake up
Dreaming of the day I wake up

Scheming for a way to stay up
Dreaming of the day I wake up
Dreaming of the day I wake up
Dreaming of the day I wake up
Dreaming of the day I wake up

Lyrics added by Isabelle P.