David Rovics Failed State Lyrics

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