Songtext The sleep of reason Billy Bragg

The sleep of reason

One by one
The stars grow dim
And fall out of the sky
And we gather round our shiny screens
To say the last goodbye
In communion with a bunch of folks
That we don't know or see
In the hope that we might feel something
In place of empathy
And so it goes…
Sure gonna miss them
Is it wrong to cling to the past when life comes at you so
fast?
And the sleep of reason produces monsters
And the sleep of reason produces monsters

Lies ride in style on a big red bus
While you walk into town
And surrogates keep their cap locks on
To shout each other down
And the levies that protected truth
Can no longer hold the flood
And expertise and experienceGet trampled in the mud
And so it goes…
Guess they had it coming
Now there's nothing that you can do
To convince them that it's true
And the sleep of reason produces monsters
And the sleep of reason produces monsters

It's over now, you lost my friend
Move on, just let it go
Says a man who flies a confederate flag
On his profile just for show
And when he hears someone point out that things
Are much too male and white
He eases of the safety catch
On his second amendment rights
And so it goes…
And the kids are alt-right
Giving license to all this hate
Is gonna make our country great
And the sleep of reason produces monsters
And the sleep of reason produces monsters

In this constant state of what the heck
Just happened, you feel woke
But through it all you treat it like
It's just some kind of joke
And in the end, the greatest threat faced by democracy isn't
fascism or fanaticism
But our own complacency
And so it goes…
Best pay attention
For there's simply no guarantee
Of a happy ending to history
And the sleep of reason produces monsters
And the sleep of reason produces monsters, produces
monsters, produces monsters