Wasteland Of The Free - Iris DeMent

We got preachers dealing in politics and diamond mines

and their speech is growing increasingly unkind

They say they are Christ’s disciples

but they don’t look like Jesus to me and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got politicians running races on corporate cash

Now don’t tell me they don’t turn around and kiss them peoples’ass

You may call me old-fashioned

but that don’t fit my picture of a true democracy

and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got CEO’s making two hundred times the workers’pay

but they’ll fight like hell against raising the minimum wage

and If you don’t like it, mister, they’ll ship your job

to some third-world country 'cross the sea

and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

Living in the wasteland of the free

where the poor have now become the enemy

Let’s blame our troubles on the weak ones

Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedy

Living in the wasteland of the free

We got little kids with guns fighting inner city wars

So what do we do, we put these little kids behind prison doors

and we call ourselves the advanced civilization

that sounds like crap to me and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got high-school kids running 'round in Calvin Klein and Guess

who cannot pass a sixth-grade reading test

but if you ask them, they can tell you

the name of every crotch on mTV

and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We kill for oil, then we throw a party when we win

Some guy refuses to fight, and we call that the sin

but he’s standing up for what he believes in and that seems pretty damned American to me and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

Living in the wasteland of the free

where the poor have now become the enemy

Let’s blame our troubles on the weak ones

Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedy

Living in the wasteland of the free

While we sit gloating in our greatness

justice is sinking to the bottom of the sea

Living in the wasteland of the free

Living in the wasteland of the free

Living in the wasteland of the free