Shot to the skull or a strike to the brain
As you withdraw, you give death a bad name
Can you be stopped, or can evil be slain?
Is there something to be lost to surrender the pain?

You're just a shade of something betrayed
Watch as you fade into the reservoir
Can you exist, shade of the oculist
No consciousness, less than a metaphor

What was once dead is now coming for you
The television said it's the right thing to do

Give me a name, more than a flame (more than a flame)
Can it contain more than a metaphor?
Show me your face, give it some breathing space
Feel my embrace, empty the reservoir

Was it for profit or was it for gain
You gave it your all, you gave life a bad name

Sentries trembling voices assembling (voices assembling)
Nothing resembling what it had been before
Contamination, death to America
Reanimation, what are you waiting for?

Give me a name, more than a flame (more than a flame)
Can it contain more than a metaphor?
Show me your face, give it some breathing space
Feel my embrace, empty the reservoir

Shot to the skull or a strike to the brain
The cadaver on the cross, you give love a bad name
Can you explain all our divided pain
What still remains after the rigor mortis
Poured gasoline, ghost in a dead machine
God save the queen, lessons and metaphors

Hung from a tree, edge of the canopy
All this debris, signals and semaphores
Round them all up, drink from the holy cup
Battered in blood, what are you waiting for?

Jump from the fire into the frying pan
Voice of the choir, now you are born again
Gathered in song, calling all next of kin
Can do no wrong, perfect American

(Follow your dreams) into the black and white
(Anthropocene) live it up, give a fight
(Shot to the heart) God bless America
(Failed from the start) what are you waiting for?

(Shot to the skull)
What are you waiting for?
(Or a strike to the brain)
What are you waiting for?
(The cadaver on the cross)
What are you waiting for?
You give love a bad name)

Copyright: BMG Rights Management, SC PUBLISHING DBA SECRETLY CANADIAN PUB.
Writer(s): Angelo De Augustine, Sufjan Stevens