Trauma - Ezra Furman

What makes a girl start a fire in the hall

Leave a lipstick scrawl on the bathroom mirror?

She won’t settle for a pile of scrap metal

While you work the gas pedal at another man’s steer

She takes her time as authorities arrive

Going out for a smoke in the empty back lot

She sees the world she imagined as a girl

Was a lottery ticket for a phony jackpot

Years roll on and we still have not dealt with our trauma

Years roll on and we still have not looked at our sin

What makes a man take a hammer in his hand

Shatter every last window of the company store

At 3 AM with the furies back again?

Now it’s him against them in a personal war

The mind snaps and economies collapse

When the one who works hardest gets the smallest reward

The big scam is nobody gives a damn

That the penthouse suite depends on the bottom three floors

And I know how hard you’ve been working

We all know somebody who’s been killed

We hold power, though it’s only for the hour

Let the ivory tower know the power we wield

They know we got 'em and empire’s in its autumn when it’s built

From the bottom and the bottom won’t build

Years roll on and they still have not dealt with our trauma

Years roll on and they still have not looked at their sin