American Debt Machine
Intro
Now serving: number forty trillion.
Verse 1
The eggs come on a payment plan in four easy little bites
One card to fill the tank up and another for the lights
The rent went up another hundred, but the paycheck never moved
And the ambulance that saved your life sent a bill to take it too
Every other rich nation's got a doctor for its own
We've got a GoFundMe, a prayer, and a loan
Pre-Chorus
Forty trillion at the top
And it rolls on down
Till the whole damn country's a company store
In a company town
Chorus
Feed the machine!
Feed the machine!
The American debt machine
It never sleeps and it's never full
And the numbers are obscene
We're sliding down the feed chute
With the jaws in view
Keep paying, keep praying
'Cause the bill is coming due
Verse 2
No money for the clinic, and the school can't buy the books
But a trillion for the war machine, and nobody even looks
We play cop for the whole wide world in places we don't belong
Now we're shaking down Greenland like it's been ours all along
We shook hands with the Kremlin while Ukraine was bleeding out
And we still call it the free world? Honey, I've got my doubts
Pre-Chorus
Chorus
Verse 3
Every grinder's got a feed chute, and the women are first in line
A mama's bleeding in the lobby, waiting on a lawyer's sign
They're scrubbing trans folks off the records like they never lived at all
And the neighbors from the jobsite disappeared behind the wall
Into tents out in the swampland, into for-profit hells
Some came home in coffins, some got shipped to foreign cells
Chorus
Feed the machine!
Feed the machine!
Call it what it's always been
The American cruelty machine
It never sleeps and it's never full
And it's already chewing through
We're sliding down the feed chute
And the next in line is you
Bridge
They still call this the first world
And I guess in a way they're right
First in guns and first in prisons
First in what it costs to save a life
Who's gonna save us now? (Who's gonna save us?)
Can we save ourselves?
Is there anything redeemable
At the bottom of this well?
I don't know if we're too far gone.
But every gear in this thing is a hand.
And hands can let go.
Final Chorus
Jam the machine!
Jam the machine!
It only ever ran on us
We're the gears and the gasoline
So lock your arms across the feed chute
Dig your heels in, hold the line
Let the jaws snap shut on nothing
Let it starve this time
Outro
Who's gonna save us?
We are.
We'd better be.