Northern Fires (Guernica)

[Verse 1: Garrett Russell]
Ration my breath, terror clandestine in my chest
Mangled, I lay on a foreign forest floor [1]
Caught in an instant, divided by distance
Alone in the fray, clutching my trigger, I pray
As I make amends with death on a distant shore [2]
Such is the fate of the nation-state [3] despite the myths, they propagate [4]
The narrative never fits the crime
Democracy's died this death a thousand times
The masses kneel before the golden cross
Held by the priest [5] who bows at the feet of the king [6]

[Chorus: Thomas Freckleton]
We stand alone in the dust of what could be
Fighting to find our humanity

[Verse 2: Garrett Russell]
Bury me with my name in an unmarked grave
Another casualty to the vanity of history [7]
The war marches on after the killing ends [8]
Take our lives: colonize our minds [9]
I've been digging through timelines, historical bylines
I find the fatal flaw in our design lies
Between thoughts we had and words we knew [10]
Between what we're told and what is true [11]
Who fuels the fascist? [12] A classist
Inculcating the masses in passes
Under the contrived countenance of contrition [13]
The victor writes the story [14], more often burns the manuscript
Set fire to a pyre cremate the crimes that they commit [15]
But the flames kept us warm
So we bit our tongues and tasted scorn
The bitter stench of finite men
Betrayed by the thieves they swore to defend
The bell will toll [16], and in the end
Lay only echoes of what could have been [17]

[Chorus: Thomas Freckleton]
We stand alone in the dust of what could be
Fighting to find our humanity
We stand alone in the dust of what could be
Nothing we fought for will set us free

[Outro: Garrett Russell]
Throw myself, headlong, to the jaws of the beast [18]
The war machine that feeds for eternity
Throw myself, headlong, to the jaws of the beast
The war machine that turns for eternity
Throw myself, headlong, to the jaws of the beast
The war machine that feeds for eternity
Throw myself, headlong, to the jaws of the beast
The war machine that turns for eternity