The Wise Men Are All Fools

The song "Last to Die" was just broadcast on The Today Show Sunday Edition. On the initial mp3's that passed around earlier this month, I liked the song, didn't really love it. But live, it just slaughtered. Maybe it was different because the sound was so clear or the voice so upfront in the mix so I could understand the words, but it just seemed to me to be the most powerful damn thing I've heard from Bruce in about... I dunno, forever. Even with the audience shots of folks clapping along, having a "good" time. Just so many lines in the song that leap out. Kids asleep in the backseat, maybe a reminder of "Seeds," with a different kind of numbness and rage. Today falls during the festival of Sukkoth, when traditionally the biblical text Koheleth (Ecclesiastes) is read. Koheleth asked, "What advantage does the wise man have over the fool?" Well... what if the (self-proclaimed) wise men are fools? Do we then just hear the cries of those who rule among fools? There's nothing new under the sun, all the while we burn. The last to die? It's you or me, spiritually it's all of us. Anyone who missed it, go out to http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/20995086/ or to youtube and catch it online. Or just click on the embed.
---- last to die we took the highway till the road went black we'd marked, Truth or Consequences on our map a voice drifted up from the radio and I thought of a voice from long ago who'll be the last to die for a mistake the last to die for a mistake whose blood will spill, whose heart wil break who'll be the last to die, for a mistake kids asleep in the backseat we're just counting the miles, you and me we don't measure the blood we've drawn anymore we just stack the bodies outside the door who'll be the last to die for a mistake the last to die for a mistake whose blood will spill, whose heart wil break who'll be the last to die, for a mistake the wise men were all fools, what to do the sun sets in flames as the city burns another day gone down as the night turns and I hold you here in my heart as things fall apart a downtown window flushed with light "faces of the dead at five" our martyr's silent eyes petition the drivers as we pass by who'll be the last to die for a mistake the last to die for a mistake darlin' will tyrants and kings fall to the same fate strung up at your city gates who'll be the last to die for a mistake

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