"He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come."
--All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
All Quiet on the Western Front
As the sun rises it brightens the east
And its rays race to strike things in the west
Shadows grow taller and darkness shrinks
Over the hills of the Great Conquest
But it's all quiet on the Western Front
The earth has already borne the brunt
Of man's conquest to own the land
Of his desire to touch with his own hand
There doesn't seem to be anyone around
There isn't a sign and there isn't a sound
Spawners of radio, forgers of silicon
The great think tank is now long gone
All is quiet on the Western Front
There once was a time when you could see
The sparks in the minds of millions who could build
Anything necessesary to advance the cause
But it seems that that ingenious spark has been killed
'Cause it's all quiet on the Western Front
Entropy is eloquent but has been arrogantly blunt
The pendulum of favor has swung the other way
And the sun is met with silence every day
There doesn't seem to be anyone around
There isn't a sign and there isn't a sound
Spawners of radio, forgers of silicon
The great think tank is now long gone
All is quiet on the Western Front
A blip in history was removed from the pages of fame
And since that day everything's seemed about the same
The earth lost nothing on such a falsely tragic day
No love was lost when Western civilization faded away
Ancient man had no traits to help him survive
It's a wonder even now that we are still alive
He didn't know each night whether he'd see the next day
But he managed to survive and thrived anyway
And then...
Ancient man learned to fight
Ancient man learned to write
Ancient man learned something more
And all those other things weren't important anymore
Ancient man learned to teach a school
But only after he'd learned to be cruel
He created ideas to be quickly learned
And he took more earth than he had earned
And then...
Ancient man learned to fight
Ancient man learned to write
Ancient man learned something more
And all those other things weren't important anymore
And then...
Ancient man learned to kill
And much blood he did spill
Ancient man bathed in gore
And survival didn't mean much anymore
The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization as We Know It
When you step onto the street is your heart filled with fear?
Do you worry someone will smash all the things you hold dear?
When you're on a street alone and you hear steps behind
Are you terrified to glance back because of what you might find?
It's the fall of everything we care to know
It's the end of the things we hold close
Everything our lives are based on, talked about
Anything we learned in school, forgot about
Is quickly being smashed by reality
Is coming back to haunt us now
It's the decline and fall of Western civilization
Our grace period has reached its end
Every empire is ground into dust
Its weight causes its skin to rend
At work do you fear your boss
And do you have to watch what you say?
When you're driving do you fear the cops?
Does a car driving by make you pray?
Is greed the master of your life?
Does terror tell you where to go?
You've lived and fought for thirty years
And what do you have to show?
Everything must rise and fall
Time will get the best of us all
We're bearing down on what we once ran from
Only too late do we realize our time has come
I woke up this morning and wanted to leave it all behind
I just had to clear my head and garner piece of mind
Why live at a modern pace, why go with the flow
When there's so much out there I can't even begin to know?
I need approval, I need some kind of proof
I need to know I haven't been living a life aloof
Please give me confirmation I've done everything I should
Can you tell me if my days have been any good?
I climbed a little mountain that in retrospect looks a hill
I came to the top but I wanted to climb higher still
So I kept on going and I planned to never stop
Every day I'll keep on walking and will never get to the top
I need conviction, I need some kind of sign
Have I lived a lie forever deemed to be benign?
Will I make a difference in this world that seems so vicious?
Or am I part of a plot to be tendentious?
I leanred to fly and started into the atmosphere
If the answer was somewhere it had to be here
The sun started setting and I caught a sight of space
My awesome insignificane soon put me in my place
I crave grounding, I crave the truth
I must find an answer before losing my youth
For my quest I put everything on hold
Now I know nothing except that I'm getting too old
SO I began my descent and returned to our little earth
I had no new sense of purpose or feeling of self-worth
All I had was an empty questions and one unfulfilled doubt
A doubt of an answer that we can never figure out
A clump of earth for a clump of bread
A clump of earth can hold the dead
A stretch of land can give you gold
A plot of earth 4 billion years old
Of course you can buy a stretch of land
It extends all the way to the core
And once you've used up your land
You can go, and buy some more
Who judges where the ownership lies
And what a 'property' is worth?
How do you gauge an acreage
And sell somebody a piece of earth?
We extend to the se and then we stop
You own the land for your precious crop
If we take more, who cares if someone cries?
But what will you do when your crop dies?
A clump of earth is not your it's mine
A clump of earth will make life fine
A stretch of land is worth some cash
A plot of land infected by human rash
I woke up this morning to seven beeping clocks
I read the headlines and checked my stocks
The walk to the car injured my tired feet
I stopped at McDonald's to get a bite to eat
Everything's instant, everything's digital
Nothing's quality, nothing's original
Everything moves at a hastened pace
We all want to win the human race
I was late for work, so I didn't care who I passed
I cranked up the air and tunes and burned some gas
Luckily I could talk on my cell phone
It's nice to know now that I'm never alone
Everything's new, everything's digital
Each little market has infinite reciprocal
I want to be in the front of the chase
But we all wanna win the human race
During lunch I got a thrifty new deal
Twice as much but I only ate half my meal
Who has time to eat all of his food?
Who has time for an ecological attitude?
I almost have no time to watch TV
What would I do without factoids beamed to me?
I set my alarm for seven as I go to bed
But I'll need more time so I'll wake at six instead
Everything's instant, everything's digital
Nothing's quality, nothing's original
I'm lagging and don't want second place
I need every minute to win the human race
You create entire world of color and sound
Shape and form and space and time
But what do you do when entropy takes command
And your inertia-powered terra nova dies?
You and I are spiraling, hurtling
Through a universe that s mostly unknown
Hoping that we not the only ones
And secretly praying that we are along
Uncertainty governs daily life
It is our most powerful religion
Without it we would have nothing to give
And suffer theological division
You forge a vast bevy of theories
Together they seem to make some sense
But you cannot hope to prove even one
So how could your outlook really be true?
You and I are pondering, wandering
Trying to find out who we are
Investigating the creating on nine planets
And our little insignificant star
You build up minds based on pattern and light
And form them all in your own image
Perhaps you should let them pick their own course
And see where innovation will take them