I know myself but I don't know what I'm gonna do. Don't know what I might say when I talk to you. Maybe I'll just cry, or maybe I'll go crazy on you. All I wanna know is will you be true? Will you listen? Will you turn away and run? Will you give up on what we've begun? Will you take my hand and take my burden upon you? All I wanna know is will you be true? Well I know myself but I don't know what I'm gonna do. Don't know what I might say when I talk to you. But will you take my hand and take my burden on you? All I wanna know is will you be true?

We are the kids, the kids on fire, We are the kids on fire. Right foot left foot down the stairs, Outside it's snowing but nobody cares, And the lights go down on the town. You're already there so you follow them down. Left foot right foot up the stairs, The light is yellow but nobody cares, And nobody in town remembers green. Red is the color we've never seen. We are the kids, the kids on fire, We are the kids on fire.

The television a one trick pony, The same routine of talking heads. I know you’d tell me I should get some sleep. I just can’t remember where I put my bed. So tonight across the ocean Kids are planting roadside bombs. Hungry kids, so brave and scared, Fed on hate they grow strong. The morning paper has forgotten How to make the boats we sailed as kids. It’s hard to believe you’re not playing hide and seek. You were always so much better than me. So tonight across New England, Mothers throw plates against the wall. The pieces shatter and crumble to the floor, It doesn’t make them feel better at all.

Oh, don't complain. Oh, no, don't complain. I've walked in and out in rain, Been up and down and down again. Oh, oh, one more thing: The shaking stops when I sing. Oh, oh, one thing: The music stops, I'm in-between. Shout, sing, scream. The sound and the fury, And I'm so tired of not being able to sleep. I don't mean to complain. I don't need to complain. A steady sticking in my brain, And in my wrists run nervous veins. Oh, one more thing: It gets much worse when I think. Oh, oh, one more thing: The music stops I'm in-between. Shout, sing, scream. The sound and the fury, And I'm so tired of not being able to sleep.

I wish I could have been there On the curb with some courage, Like a comic book hero Or the local kid gone good. She was someone I once knew Ten years ago at public school, He thought his fist was eloquent But it was just the opposite. It was the monkey wrench in the printing press That broke her jaw and stole her sense Of safety and faith in humanity And replaced it with violence and tragedy. How could he bear to live with this? She was the mother of his kids, And couldn’t bear to lose them For anything in the world. So fuck all this whiny emo shit. We can’t talk of pain, we don’t know what it is. We’ve never been there. We’ve never been hit. Our ability for atrocity Outstrips our best attempts to speak Of the ugly things that go bump in the night— We are the ugly things, let’s get it right. Four out of ten is conservative, As far as I can tell it is, For I knew Jen and Jesse and Jane, And none of them were ever the same. Late at night on some quiet road, All alone after the show, One was the law meant to defend, Another was a cousin, a coach or a friend. And twelve years old outside the mall— I can’t think of any further to fall For a people or race consumed with hate Than to prey on ourselves in this heinous way. It just doesn’t make sense, What we give is not what we get. I dream in ideology, I’d settle for justice for Kate. Out of the desert where no water drinks, Tonight I feel the breeze on the breath of the Sphinx, There’s a puzzle yet to this human race, It runs down my cheek in my disgrace. And in my mind there’s a plane on fire, It’s circling up higher and higher, The drops of oil scatter in the wind, It looks like heaven is raining sin. Tonight I’m heavy with remembered dreams, We were very young and how strange that seems, I promised myself to the end of the sky, I’d keep you safe now a liar am I. I haven’t seen you in a decade or more, Your road has been long and you’re hot and you’re sore. If music could be a cool wet cloth, I’d cover your eyes and turn this off. The heat from the sun you’ve had to face, And the lines in your skin that won’t erase. Like dunes in the desert you left behind, I leave this oasis for you to find. I give you this Kate 'cause it’s all I have, And it makes no difference my getting mad. And even if I could get even with him, I’d trade it just to see you smile again.