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Empire Lyrics
Artist: Queensryche
Album: Empire
Last night the word came down, ten dead in Chinatown.
Innocent, their only crime was being in the wrong place, at the wrong time
Too bad, people say what's wrong with the kids today
Tell you right now they've got nothing to lose
They're building EMPIRE!
Johnny used to work after school
at the cinema show.
Gotta hustle if he wants an education
he's got a long way to go.
Now he's out on the street all day
selling Crack to the people who pay.
Got an AK-47 for his best friend
business the American way.
Eastside meets Westside downtown.
No time, the walls fall down
Can't you feel it coming? EMPIRE! Can't you hear it calling?
Black man, trapped again. hold his chain in his hand.
Brother killing brother for the profit of another,
Game point, nobody wins. Decline, right on time.
What happened to the dream sublime?
Tear it all down, we'll put it up again. Another EMPIRE?
Eastside meets Westside downtown.
No time, no line, the walls fall down.
Can't you feel it coming? EMPIRE!
Can't you hear it coming EMPIRE!
Can't someone here stop it...??!!
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Comments/Interpretations
Love this song!!!
I've always liked this song, even when I was too young to understand the meaning. Only recently has it inspired me to OPEN MY EYES to truth and close them to our nation's zeitgeist. What's ZEITGEIST...?! Look it up...seriously
narly dude
this song is crazy
I love this song.One of my favorite of theirs.Rock On!
It takes twice as much to incarcerate a youth as it is to put them through mandatory drug rehab. Justice and compassionate must meet. A felony is hard to shake.
This band so rocks
ths song makes m0re sense 2day than when it 1st came out.
gecko, you spelled gnarly wrong. But yeah it is huh?(:
their missing about 2 minutes of lyrics
Can't you feel it coming?
Can't you hear it "CALLING," -- not "coming."
Song lyrics goof:
It says Law Enforcement was 6% of all federal spending and then it says that Space Exploration was "43 times more" than Law Enforcement ---those numbers are not possible. You can't go over 100% --- tell me where I'm wrong. And "going over budget" is not the answer because it does not say anything about a "budget" it just says "spending"
i wasnt sure about that line which is why i looked up the lyrics. i thought they may have meant 6th of all but i wasnt sure or .6%
this song just rocks!
Yes, you can spend over budget, how do you think we have a 14trillion dollar debt....
to the last post... you can spend more than budget. BUT the song refers to the money as an amount that was spent. There is no such thing as more than 100% when you refer to an amount you spent. If you spent $10 then you spent $10. You can't say 120% of the money I spent went towards groceries. So if we had spent $1,000 total (federal spending) and we spent 6% on law enforcement then that would say we spent $60.00 of all the money the fed had to spend on law enforcement. If we spent 43x more on space exploration, that would mean we spent 43 x $60 = $2,580 on that. That totals to $2,640. This leads me to believe that it was .6 of a percent that was spent on law enforcement ($6.00) and that would mean that $258 was spent on space exploration - which is more than a quarter of federal spending if the total spent in this example was $1,000.
Awesome song! It rocks and conveys an important message! Why not accept poetical justice for what it is and enjoy the music? Put the calculator back in your desks top drawer. What are you accountants? !,,!
To the point of "spending". Recognize there is FEDERAL spending (Space Program) and there is Federal, State, County, City spending on "incarceration". The point illustrated is that our Federal Government spends less on exploring the "future" (space) than WE (fed/state/city/county...a NATION) on incarcerating people (payment for past indiscretions). Just my $.02...but that's what the lyrics say/illustrate:)
Ahhh nothing like an awesome song to bring back the memories...LOVE this song. And for those bickering about budgets, calculations, and what not, the song is actually about the rise of violence and rise in expenditures on things such as space exploration instead of investing in law enforcement. I really don't think E.T. will keep you from getting mugged on a dark night, do you? ----Owwchh.....
I thought it went, "johnny used to work after school, at the set of the show" meaning like a band...
Bro this song is like on of the best songs of all times :)
i love this song XD
Love the melody and the lyrics, awesome combo
I actually believe the song goes a little deeper...as QR usually lives well beneath the surface as opposed to on it. Going back in history, it is in man's nature or base existence to "build empires". From prehistoric man, to the Mongols, the Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, Spanish, Turks, British, Russian, US, to the Chinese, people always build empires. When you look at that and balance it with what was happening with drugs and gang violence during the late 80's early 90's, you just see the same thing but on a smaller scale. The empires were built in the inner cities...they covered territories that spread a couple of blocks. The Crips, Bloods, or even the Mexican cartels of today are all just people out to create, protect, and grow their own empires.
actually the money says couple ten million more on space exploration, but 43 times more on national defense. a war we shouldnt be fighting
It's a great song, but, as others have alluded to, the lyrics about federal spending numbers seem to be really messed up. I try to ignore those lyrics lest I get frustrated and start to question the awesomeness of the overall song.
These guys are artists, not statisticians or politicians. They may have (completely) missed the mark on % of spending and all that, but the main message is: 'the govt spends more on BS than on the safety and well being of the avg American.' Don't give yourselves aneurisms trying to crunch the numbers. It's not that deep fellas! The artist that mixes politics with their craft is doomed either way. Look at the Dixie chicks. They told a buncha rednecks they hated Bush. Now they work at a cafeteria at a hospital lol just enjoy the song! The riffs are sick, the time signature change fits perfectly, the vocals are second to none, the rhythm and bass guitars actually harmonize most of the song! It's a masterpiece meant to be respected for the ART, not the message! Don't dig deeper than you need to!