The Kids Are Ready to Die

All these inanimate places feel like they're changing
And the kids all lined up on the wall look like they're ready to die
These forms they're sending, it's like they'll just rearrange them
We were caged up like animals questioned and ready to cry

Cause I was just thirteen when I got my first taste of danger
Standing by the church, I had a bottle and a pen in my hand
I said, "Father, I'm sorry, I just don't know what to do with this anger!
This behavior is correctable; I know this wasn't part of your plan!"

But punks like us were always receiving instruction
And you could burn our clothes, you could wash out the ink and the dye
But you can't look me in the eye and say you don't feel like a little destruction
And the kids are lined up on the wall and they're ready to die

All these days just seem like they're getting longer
The view from my room is a gloomy and overcast grey
The weakness we left behind seems to be getting stronger
I swear there's something in the air, and I don't know what anyone could say

Cause I saw it in the news this morning
There was another boy by the side of the road, he had a gun in his hand
And I thought, "Well what could you say to make it ever make sense to his mother?"
"Oh ma'am, he was excitable, we were just trying to make him a man!"

But the day will come when it falls like a cheap house of plastic
And the cards that were dealt will be tossed like a storm in the sky
Because you can only lie for so long before you get something drastic
And the kids are lined up on the wall and they're ready to die