The final track off the 2020 self-titled album by Lamb of God, this song covers the general lack of support available for drug addiction in the United States, and in some cases enabling corporations and the government to put profits over people.
The title is an inversion of the phrase “off the hook...
[Verse 1]
A dead silver spoon with needles in his skin
Rode a pale horse down from Afghanistan
Tears in the suburbs, mothers praying for their damned
Death has crept into their zone of the promised land
[Pre-Chorus 1]
But just before each plague
The clearest prophecies
Pandora's box in backwoods pharmacies
A contract to die
[Chorus]
Prescription for a homicide
A generation on the hook
Addicted and commodified
Prescription for a homicide
[Verse 2]
Narcotic economics for the miner’s sons
The seams went bust so long ago with nowhere else to turn
Strip mine the veins, drill the abscess dry
Incentives for the architects of their genocide
[Pre-Chorus 2]
We've seen this all before
In a different shade
The Dark Alliance shifts to the modern age
A contract to die
[Chorus]
Prescription for a homicide
A generation on the hook
Addicted and commodified
Prescription for a homicide
Prescription for a homicide
They're never worth a second look
Addicted and commodified
Your prescription for a homicide
[Bridge]
A contract to die
A contract to die
A contract to die
A contract to die
Die, die, die, die
[Outro]
Hippocratic hypocrites
Breaking oaths and cashing checks
Wrote an ocean’s worth of ink
Scripting a nation's disease
A systematic business plan
To broker death, increase demand
So flood the ghetto and starve the hills
Kill them all with crack and pills
Kill them all
Kill them all
(Vietnam, Iran-Contra, Park Avenue, OxyContin)
On the Hook was written by Mark Morton & Willie Adler & Randy Blythe.
On the Hook was produced by Josh Wilbur.
Lamb of God released On the Hook on Fri Jun 19 2020.