Prometheus

Verse 1

The radio clicks on this morning

Poor swollen America at work

Selling the exhausting obligation of joy

While arguing about the man with the weapon

Who kills fifty in five minutes

Is he sick or is he something worse

They keep asking the same question

While the children watch the blue fire burn

Pre-Chorus

And I keep thinking of Prometheus

Chained to the rock with the eagle at his chest

Told around the campfire by our first fathers

Must have been the story of the stolen spark

Chorus

Contain and explode

Contain and explode

We threw the powders in the fire and we danced

Contain and explode

Contain and explode

The birds are still rising from the waters

Verse 2

They found the color in the sand

They found the white phosphorus glow

The steam that spins the engine round

The story that we tell ourselves

Two thousand years ago in China

Fire and mineral in a small space

The same god's breath the sky once gave

Now measured out in rounds per minute

Pre-Chorus

And I keep thinking of the farm boys

Sent marching with their horses and their steel

Shattered on the fields they never asked for

Their names lost in the echo of the wheel

Chorus

Contain and explode

Contain and explode

We threw the powders in the fire and we danced

Contain and explode

Contain and explode

The birds are still rising from the waters

Bridge

Someone was counting all the numbers

Eight million gone in four short years

Someone was counting all the numbers

Sixty-six thousand in a single minute

And the radio clicks on

And the radio clicks on

And the radio clicks on

Final Chorus

Contain and explode

Contain and explode

We threw the powders in the fire and we danced

Contain and explode

Contain and explode

The immense flocks are still rising

Crying out sharply over the waters

Must have been

Must have been

Must have been