Failed State

When you're working two jobs and living in a tent

When a house costs a million bucks and you can't pay the rent

When politicians say they'll help but it keeps getting worse

Each time the landlord lobby pulls the strings of the purse

When the human right to housing isn't even part of the debate

You know you're living in a failed state

When millions of citizens are spending half their lives

Locked up in a prison for trying to survive

When laws must be broken just to have a place to stay

When the prisons pay the senators to look the other way

If you have to be a criminal to put food upon your plate

You know you're living in a failed state

When you're facing climate breakdown

When the trees are all on fire

When half the country's underwater

When a climate change denier

Runs the nation

And the opposition party votes for oil rigs and pipelines

This is not so much a country as it is a corporation

Buckling under its weight

You know you're living in a failed state

When your nation is an empire facing daily blowback

And the only thing your leaders can think to do is attack

Bipartisan consensus that we need to spend

Seven-hundred billion before the year's end

On a military budget to 'make America great'

You know you're living in a failed state

When almost every day some psycho with a gun

Has to open fire on a crowd before it's done

When a music festival becomes a free-fire zone

And all they can say is 'it's okay, he was acting alone'

Buy some armor, pray to God, and hide behind a gate

You know you're living in a failed state

You know you're living in a failed state

You know you're living in a failed state