Beware, the tide's a'rising
In the city of brotherly love
The blood red lights were a'flashin
As the cellars rose up in a flood
And when they dragged you from the depths of mud
They beat you while you were down
And then they tossed you in jail for a hundred years:
Save a city, burn it down
And that's what they said
As they tore your homes
To the ground

And when I was seven in suburban heaven
The teachers and elders and police
They'd cover my ears so I wouldn't hear
The gunshots soar through those city streets
And if anyone questioned the liberty bomb
Or why the timers were even wound
A scolding they'd earn, and so we soon learned:
To save a city, you burn it down
And that's what they said
As they burned their
Homes to the ground

So many people and so many lives
So many keep silent so they can survive
Respect
Slaughtering cops and the politicians they laud
Or the gavels will crush down your home
And you'll be expected to applaud
So the crime was a trip to the market
The sentence, a lifetime of hurt
As she saw through tears
Her home of thirty of years
Reduced to rubble and dirt
And she cursed those who would approach her
And hold papers up to her face, and say
"You should feel blessed you live in the U.S
And not some other hellish place"

So take heed if you live in the city
In a part where the tourists won't tread
And beware if you maintain resistance
And choose not to be one of the led
And if you're out in suburban gardens
Don't let them plant lies deep in your head
'Cause you too could come home to no home
Or to find your family dead

'Cause they've got this dream of a city
Where no community unity can be found
So stand up to save your neighbor hood
Fuck the city, burn it down(x3)