Tom Frampton - Johnny Chords

Standard (EADGBE)

Intro/Outro: Am G Am , C G C

Am G Am x x

Of course a social relation can't be changed with a bomb

It takes moCre than dynamiGte to get folCks to respond

Of course tomorrow morning if our whole system collapsed

We'd divide ourselves again on lines of gender, race, and class

But tonight I don't care if we win a million hearts

Unless we rip them out their chests and start throwing them at cars

Because tonight it's not enough to sympathize and wear pins

They count everyone who doesn't rise up as a win

Lying in bed we dream a thousand revolutionary plots

We're fucking petrified to use the bit of power we got

It's not to say it's not important to build and organize

But all talk and no act is just reaction in disguise

So some of us aren't gonna wait another thousand years

For the world to loose their crutches and to swallow their fear

Because complacency is guilt and response is overdue

Johnny, the Movement needs your heart but it needs your body, too

FWe'll build casCtles in the skAmy from the ruins of a helGl on earth

And find a rage to live inside so full it's about to burst

Johnny, we'll shout our songs in the wreckage tonight

And smuggle our stories out through the gauntlets and bring them back to life

As bombs and beating hearts

A little piece of each of us inside is a cop

We try to fuck each other over just to rise to the top

And the dog mimics the master but he only eats the scraps

We whip the ones below but get cracked on our own back

There's a banker and a fascist deep in all of our bones

And it comes as no surprise because that's all that we've known

But a week ago I saw a garden in a vacant lot

I saw an empty building become a living, breathing squat

I saw partiers take over city rush-hour roads

I saw a little bit of beach underneath the paving stone

If we can manifest these situations in the street

And subvert our daily lives that we're walking through asleep

Maybe there's hope for us, too, beyond the products on sale

Beyond myths of human nature and a hundred thousand jails

Imagine tearing down the borders our society defines

Imagine what we could become given a little work and time

We'll build castles in the sky from the ruins of a hell on earth

And find a rage to live inside so full it's about to burst

Johnny, we'll shout our songs in the wreckage tonight

And smuggle our stories out through the gauntlets and bring them back to life

As bombs and beating hearts