It's Not Working (The Truth) - Propaganda, Courtney Orlando

All I want, all I need

I just want the truth, I just want the truth

All I want, all I need

Is to focus on you, is to focus on you

All I want

We thought they would take us serious

And would listen if we ain’t furious

So we painted our picket signs

And we blessed the due process

And we learned the Constitution

And believed in the Bill of Rights

And learned our country’s history

Like you, we stood against that tyranny

And survived the three-fifths compromise

Only to sharecrop and then Jim Crow

And then red lines and we figured it was high time

So we organized two by two because we desired service

We were nervous

But we deserved to be treated like we were citizens

And survived them fire hydrants

And the wild dogs and crooked laws

Only to get smacked with that war on drugs and crack attack

But we believed you, made our hashtags and you mocked us

But we broke our necks just to hold our chins up

And them anti-gang rallies, they lifted our consciousness up

But it feel like this ain’t real life

And my American skin won’t let me win

And I’m so tired and I ain’t tryna scare you

But I looked to the sky like «Grandmama I think I failed you»

All I want, all I need

I just want the truth, I just want the truth

All I want, all I need

Is to focus on you, is to focus on you

All I want

And we thought we could be taken serious

Be all we could be, a rifle and a GI bill

Army first to desegregate

Could stand with your countrymen

Brothers in arms 'cause you got no qualms

We equal rights is that napalm

And the Marine Corps landed them poor black men out in Berlin

And they couldn’t help but notice the striking resemblance

Between these Jewish ghettos and the one in they own Chicago

How a man 'posed to gun tote for a country that don’t let him vote?

Or take down a dictator doing the same thing his own POTUS do

That riddle alone would ruin your psyche too

And that nitro tricycling, it got him biting five vicodins

It’s a shame the Cold War vets ain’t get no ticker tape parades

Maybe that’s why they alcoholic

Maybe that’s why he womanizing

Maybe I can forgive my dad for all the years he kept lying

All I want, all I need

I just want the truth, I just want the truth

All I want, all I need

Is to focus on you, is to focus on you

All I want

Let me tell you what you ain’t try

You ain’t try taking into consideration

That even if change came, you’d still be the same Jason

Lame Jason, still struggling with patience

And collecting objects and projects and protests, you ain’t try

You ain’t try listening, history a proven track record

No evil has ever gone unpunished

And kingdoms come and go and thrones get thrown to oblivion

And I am not at all shook in any way by Satan

And you ain’t try realizing what you are really running from

And what you are really fighting for

It’s a frightening indictment

That even if all these world problems are solved

It still wouldn’t resolve what you are actually looking for

And it’s not like these problems, they don’t need to be addressed

But fixing systemic issues, it ain’t the source of your rest

Or satisfaction, and I know it’s your life’s work

But the work of a man’s hands, it has never quenched his thirst

You say I’m King of kings but son, I don’t get it how

You could trust me for eternity but can’t trust me for now

Hoping in a broken system to fix what’s broken in us

It’s not working, is it?