I've been waiting for something to happen

 

For a week or a month or a year

 

With the blood in the ink of the headlines

 

And the sound of the crowd in my ear

 

You might ask what it takes to remember

 

When you know that you've seen it before

 

Where a government lies to a people

 

And a country is drifting to war

 

And there's a shadow on the faces

 

Of the men who send the guns

 

To the wars that are fought in places

 

Where their business interest runs

 

On the radio talk shows and the TV

 

You hear one thing again and again

 

How the USA stands for freedom

 

And we come to the aid of a friend

 

But who are the ones that we call our friends

 

These governments killing their own

 

Or the people who finally can't take any more

And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone

There are lives in the balance

 

There are people under fire

 

There are children at the cannons

 

And there is blood on the wire

 

There's a shadow on the faces

 

Of the men who fan the flames

 

Of the wars that are fought in places

 

Where we can't even say the names

 

They sell us the president the same way

They sell us our clothes and our cars

 

They sell us every thing from youth to religion

 

The same time they sell us our wars

 

I want to know who the men in the shadows are

 

I want to hear somebody asking them why

 

They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are

But they're never the ones to fight or to die

And there are lives in the balance

 

There are people under fire

 

There are children at the cannons

 

And there is blood on the wire