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Rage of a Child

from Animal by Higher Learning

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about

Lyrics and Music written in December of 2011
Recorded at Earth Capitol in Los Angeles, California, December 2011

lyrics

Lyrics:
Propaganda addicts, slaving through the years
Songs of desolation playing in their ears:

"This is your inheritance
World of excess and sword
Welcome to your birthright
Where convenience rules as lord
The modern cult of hatred springing forth to full fruition
To hell with Love and Charity, outdated superstition
You're worthless your ideas are wrong
You're stupid and you don't belong
Where's your children? Where's your wife?
You're growing old and wasting life
You're life's not yours your dreams are dead
Now get in line and slave for bread
Hide the tears you long to weep
Trudge through life with lack of sleep
We hate you! yes its true wish the very worst on you
Despise you! oh yes its true, hope you fail at all you do
The price of gas,cost of grain are the tax you pay so don't complain
Worship estate, drink acid rain and when the banks they rape, embrace the pain"

I oppose this structure, I will not be beguiled
Stand forever in resistance wielding the Rage of A Child.

I am no slave, who speaks as he is told
My dignity is mine, it won't be bought nor sold
A Neo-Raparee, fighting nail and tooth
The incurable idealist still clinging to the Truth.

No Submission.
No Chain.No Tag.
No Submission.
No Tattered White Flag.

Thoughts:
It is interesting to watch how children have very little tolerance for charades, pretense and what they perceive to be insincere and false. Hans Christian Andersen’s story The Emperor’s New Clothes, perhaps best describes this concept. If you are not familiar with the story, I encourage you to read it. The idea of children, being some sort of embodiment of truth and decency, is nearly universal in human literature, religion and folklore. Both Jesus and Lao Tzu refer to salvation as something that can only be acquired by the childlike. J.M. Barries’ Peter Pan, a child, does not fear death but rather welcomes it as “an awfully great adventure” while his adult nemesis Captain Hook, is forever terrified of clocks, a symbol of time and a correlation to the crocodile, who not coincidentally is linked with his inevitable death. We can go on, but I am sure you grasp what is being referred to when the phrase “Rage of a Child” is used in this song.

It is important to stress that this is NOT a political song. Far from it, for the political is not the center of being and it could be said that those who believe so, have resigned themselves a lifeless worldview. We do not hold solutions to the problems that have plagued humanity since its beginning, so we are not proposing any. THIS SONG IS ABOUT clinging to what is real, what is true and what is unchanging, to withstand the petty ugliness of human life and still hold onto the belief in the coming of a reconciled world.

So now the final question arises, where do we fit in to this picture? Do we wish to resign Hardcore Music, and far more importantly our own lives to self-obsession and insincerity? Do we wish to become so narcissistically obsessed with ourselves and our own problems, our own legacy and our hatred that we destroy the world around us until we will ultimately fade in our own vanity, or do we wish for something better, something purer and something truer?


It may very well be that hardcore music will cease to exist within our lifetime. It is probably even more likely that the overwhelming majority of us will move on and “sell out” into the inescapable responsibilities and obligations of living. And this is nothing to be ashamed of for Hardcore is not an end in it of itself and should not be confused as such. Hardcore is a temporary means to an end, and we should play it and listen to it in the hope and anticipation that there will come a time when we will no longer need Hardcore. The only thing that is important about our participation in this music is what did we learn from it and how we used it to better our own lives? Did we reaffirm our desire to be forever bound to the true and irreconcilable with false or did we run into the arms of pretense? Did we learn to Love or merely feed our own hatred? Did we learn that human kind exists for community and reciprocation, or did we convince ourselves that we were all that mattered? Did we learn there is Truth and that we exist for it or did we decide that we define Truth as we wish?

We will all die, that is a given, this song is an encouragement to resist the insincere, cling to the real and in doing so “staying young” until that day.

credits

from Animal, released September 4, 2013

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