You wake up Feel the manacles on your wrists (we just want to help you) You shake your head Clear the fog, hands balled into fists (we need to protect you) Lash out! Looks like someone took your weapons away (we had to declaw you) You get up Disarmed, to stagger through another day (so now we can keep you) Where are the bastards Where are the bastards Show your faces and I'll show you who's master... Free at heart, but if I keep my Free nose to the grindstone, I can Pay to stay alive, and I'll be Free at five, so if you're Free why don't we meet, 'cause I can Pay enough for both of us to Free our minds together, it's a Free country, you know your will is Free, yeah, the first one's always Free... ...and I'm a Slave to all my instincts, but that Slavery, yeah, it stinks, so I Master my reactions and I Slave away; inaction makes a Slave of me under another Master, break away and I'm a Slave to freedom, a Slave to what my conscience says is Mastery, but just another Slave. I think I've overcome the urge To stalk and hunt what I deserve, My masters tell me that they need me, But their words will never feed me, So I let my instincts lead me Down a road to desolation, Cashing in each new sensation, Selling hope for cheap elation, and there's No time to search for something better, No time to know, to will, to dare, to be, No time to laugh and dance and cry and sing, No time to face the dark or seek the light, No time and no way and no chance and No where and no one... And they pick me up and put me in a cage, I fly into a rage, There's nothing I can do, Nothing I can do, Nothing I can do, Nothing... 'Cause now I've been declawed. (You limp on home When the day is done, Chain your head to the pillow, And think about the race you've run, Lick clean the holes in your bloody paws Where you tore out your own razor claws One by one, To be nice and play tame For the master's son. What did you gain From the shame and the pain, Just a collar and chain, Now how does it feel to be tame? Goodnight kitty. Tomorrow we'll fix you.)
-skyler 1995-96