LYRIC: The Tone of our Oppression

It’s easy to say they’re all the same

Same ideologies under a slightly different name

And I remember, as a kid, thinking Bill Hicks was so deft

With his “puppet on the right” and his “puppet on the left”

I’m just as guilty as him as I sang “vote for change”

Implying the choice is fiction when you’re choosing from a range

Of options limited from pretty bad to even worse

I sang democracy’s eulogy and packed it in a hearse

Because it’s evident to all of us that we’re not truly represented

And if voting could change anything they’d have made a law against it

But while I confess we are being oppressed, I think that history’s shown

When it comes to our oppression each election sets the tone

Because there’s a tone to our oppression

We choose the tone of our oppression

What is the tone of our oppression?

There is a tone to our oppression 

Each campaign sets parameters of what we should debate

Do we pick the puppet who speaks of love or the puppet who speaks of hate?

Each candidate has a worldview of what problems we all face

And this worldview is instructive of where priorities will be placed

For while utopia remains a goal, we’re not in utopia yet

And we can’t afford idealistic gambles with our social safety net

Because people actually live and die based on policy decisions

We might agree they’re not perfect but don’t tell me all politicians

Are all basically the same when that is blatantly untrue

The lesser of two evils entails a better of the two

It’s not a lot but it’s not nothing and it’s time we heed this lesson

Their rhetoric sets a mandate for the tone of our oppression

Because there’s a tone to our oppression

We choose the tone of our oppression

What is the tone of our oppression?

There is a tone to our oppression 

We choose the tone of our oppression

Real lives will be affected by who is and isn’t elected