Lords of War - LowKey, Kaia

Intestines, shattered hopes and dreams adorn the floor

The face behind the screen has seen it all before

And the worst thing about is there’s more in store

Just another sacrifice to the lords of war

The royal family sell guns

The royal family sell bombs

That kill the world’s poorest people

The government sell guns

The government sell bombs

That kill the world’s poorest people

The sacrosanct march of industry

The sacrosanct march of industry

Does such strange things to people

The spectatorship of suffering

The spectatorship of suffering

Does oh such strange things to people

Oh lord of war, how do you sleep?

Oh lord of war, how do you sleep at night?

Oh lord of war, how do you sleep?

Oh lord of war, how do you sleep at night?

Oh lord…

She was eight years old, imagination alive

Cute as could be, you could see the gleam of mischief in her eye

Carrying her kite, to try find a place where it could it fly

Hovering not far she saw what was a spaceship in her mind

Too young to really understand exactly what the buzz meant

Bread and water everyday, other than that she’s unfed

Pressure applied diplomatically to stop aid

Reality enforced by the air and naval blockade

Back to her, through her blood flows Qahtan

Ancient civilisation but its status has lost charm

She found a place to fly kite in the soft calm

Some will say that her life was in God’s palm

She heard her mother call, saw her brother fall

Didn’t realise quick enough, stumbled from the sudden force

A flicker and a flash to the horror scene of death

And this is what happens when technology meets flesh

Oh lord of war, how do you sleep?

Oh lord of war, how do you sleep at night?

Oh lord of war, how do you sleep?

Oh lord of war, how do you sleep at night?

Oh lord…

Intestines, shattered hopes and dreams adorn the floor

The face behind the screen has seen it all before

And the worst thing about is there’s more in store

Just another sacrifice to the lords of war

A caravan in Nevada, he sits twiddling a control pad

Taking down coordinates, scribbling in his notepad

When he sweats the headphones itch and irritate his eczema

Watching scenes on the screen as they enter through his retina

Sick of his life, his wife and this job 'cause it kills

Sick of his father sick of debt from the hospital bills

Childhood of computer games that learned him in murder

He wonders if he’s better off serving up burgers

A small part of him loved watching death from a distance

But that feeling numbed away through monotonous repetition

Merely going through the motions, like the robot that he operates

Depersonalised murder, victim-less violence for the modern age

His cold stare and tap of a button takes her only life

Instantly regrets but watches on as she slowly dies

Grotesquely intertwined via the screen that he stared through

Her kite floats away but we will never know where to…

«What fools we are, to live in a generation, for which war is a computer game

for our children, and just an interesting little Channel 4 News item»

Oh lord of war, how do you sleep?

Oh lord of war, how do you sleep at night?

Oh lord of war, how do you sleep?

Oh lord of war, how do you sleep at night?

Oh lord…

Intestines, shattered hopes and dreams adorn the floor

The face behind the screen has seen it all before

And the worst thing about is there’s more in store

Just another sacrifice to the lords of war

The lord lives in the third dimension far from the theatre

But every now and again the whimpers of the carnage get nearer

Sometimes in his dreams he sees the harmed and disfigured

Like Dorian Gray can’t see his moral scars in the mirror

Cognitive dissonance, suppresses his pangs of conscience

Rationalises it away, everybody has their monsters

But he is not everyone

He is a parasite of life and carries within him a selfish song never sung

Believes he loves his children, is he capable of love?

Lord of the machines that rain Satan from above

Will they justify what daddy did or hate him as they must

Realise their bread and butter left faceless faces in the dust

As the sights locked on her he loosened his suit and tie

As he sighs, balls of fire were shooting off to her right

As she died, he ordered a fruit juice with some ice

Her kite floats away, he admires the blueness of the sky… Oh Lord of war