Lyrics

The Circle
by Anna Fritz

My mother and my father were never disappeared.
I haven’t lived a life that knows the depths of all your fears.
But I know the killings by the death squads that have laid to waste your lands
were wrought by American hands. American hands.

I never had to cut the olive trees that fed my family well,
my hands forced by the soldiers, under hatred’s ugly spell.
But I know the theft of your land and homes, your daughters and your sons,
it was done with American guns. American guns.

I don’t work for the Pentagon or build their dirty bombs.
I’m not the one who pulls the trigger or burns the people’s farms.
But I know the biggest crimes committed are the things we buy each day.
It’s the money we pay. The money we pay.

I haven’t found the answer of how to live and breathe
in this culture of oppression without serving global thieves
cause when we pay for our insurance and our gas and food and clothes
we give power to the men who will bring us to our end.

There was a time when all people knew the ground under their feet,
a time when work had meaning and the circle was complete,
when people only used what they needed to survive.
We were truly alive. Truly alive.

So I won’t work in your factories or build your roads to hell.
I will not punch the time clock and pretend that all is well
because freedom is my birthright just like every earthly thing.
All these prisons will burn and life will return.