Civil War
♫ Guns N' Roses Lyrics

Look at your young men fighting
Reflect on the fact that young people are fighting in wars

Look at your women crying
Notice the women who are grieving over the loss of loved ones

Look at your young men dying / The way they've always done before
Acknowledge that this is a recurring pattern in human history

Look at the hate we're breeding
Recognize that hate is being nurtured and developed

Look at the fear we're feeding
Take notice of how fear is being used to influence people

Look at the lives we're leading / The way we've always done before
Understand that people are living their lives as they have always done, even if it leads to war

My hands are tied
I am unable to change the course of events

The billions shift from side to side
The balance of power is constantly changing

And the wars go on with brainwashed pride / For the love of God and our human rights
People are fighting wars with a sense of pride that has come from being brainwashed and they are doing it for the reasons of God and human rights

And all these things are swept aside / By bloody hands time can't deny
These reasons are ignored due to the bloodshed and violence that has occurred over time and can't be forgotten or denied.

And are washed away by your genocide / And history hides the lies of our civil wars
The genocide that people participate in is being forgotten due to the erroneous information history presents us about civil wars

D'you wear a black armband / When they shot the man / Who said 'peace could last forever'
As a member of society, do you demonstrate your mourning when a man who stood for peace is assassinated?

And in my first memories / They shot Kennedy / I went numb when I learned to see / So I never fell for Vietnam
The assassination of JFK was traumatic for me and I learned from it so that I didn't let myself get pulled into the Vietnam War

We got the wall of D.C. to remind us all / That you can't trust freedom / When it's not in your hands
The Wall in Washington D.C is there to remind us that you cannot place your trust in freedom when it is not controlled by those people who must utilize that freedom

When everybody's fightin' / For their promised land
People are always fighting for territory they believe they have been promised

I don't need your civil war / It feeds the rich while it buries the poor / Your power hungry sellin' soldiers / In a human grocery store / Ain't that fresh
Civil wars are not needed as they primarily serve the wealthy while the poor are the ones that suffer the most. Those in power sell off poor people to war as if they were goods in a store. This is an unfortunate reality.

Look at the shoes you're filling / Look at the blood we're spilling / Look at the world we're killing / The way we've always done before
We should be aware of the lives that have been lost and how we engage in the same patterns of behavior over and over again leading to the destruction of the world

Look in the doubt we've wallowed / Look at the leaders we've followed / Look at the lies we've swallowed / And I don't want to hear no more
Look at how we've lost our confidence; look at who we follow and who leads us; look at how we have been deceived. I cannot bear to hear anymore of it

My hands are tied / For all I've seen has changed my mind
I cannot act due to my observations which have caused me to lose my prior perspective

But still the wars go on as the years go by / With no love of God or human rights
Wars persist with no sign of diminishing as the years go by regardless of the principles we supposedly abide by

'Cause all these dreams are swept aside / By bloody hands of the hypnotized / Who carry the cross of homicide
Our collective aspirations are being ignored due to individuals who are hypnotized and controlled by those who use violence as their means of obtaining their objectives

And history bears the scars of our civil wars
The scars of these wars are imprinted on our records of history

Whaz so civil 'bout war anyway?
The term 'civil war' is oxymoronic, as war is inherently uncivilized