Alligator Records | 2021. dec. 8.
https://www.youtube.com/@alligator_records

The official video for Carolyn Wonderland's "Fragile Peace And Certain War" from her Alligator Records debut, TEMPTING FATE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5Ct-eQkOwU

Words and music by Carolyn Wonderland (Bob-A-Lew Songs obo Wonder Chicken, ASCAP)

Lyrics:

We're lighting up our cigarettes
Three smokes on every match
Tempting fate and bad luck
We're impossible to catch

Sell a grain of truth
In a sandbag full of lies
Nobody weighs it anyway
When it's all they want to buy

I've seen men go down for less
They don't come back from these trenches
Both sides have fought all day
Now we're clearing out the benches

The enemy has Zippos
They don't need your matches anymore
& we're standing on the precipice
Between fragile peace and certain war

II:
I hate the weight of my gun
To have to wear it don't seem fair
I'd like to melt it down
Into a shiny new plowshare

But this soil ain't fit for tilling
& the water ain't fit to drink
I'm trying to be a good soldier
But I've been pushed past the brink

In three days we'll be evicted
God knows where we'll go
I gotta get some money
& the legal way is too slow

I don't want to be this desperate
I don't want to rob this store
I'm standing on the precipice
Of fragile peace and certain war

Bridge:
I long to live in peace
That's so much more than lack of violence
But right now we see injustice
And our collective response is silence
We have to lift each other up
Or lay scattered on the floor
We're all struggling on the precipice
Of fragile peace and certain war

III:
Funny there's no money
When poor kids need some food
We'll subsidize the richest man
To drown in cheaper crude

Jamie's off to college
Jaime's bound for jail
You say that's the price for freedom
I say freedom's not for sale

Charlatans and preachers
Recruiting day & night
It's just as well, it's hard to tell
Who's really on your side

The rich don't have the answers,
Neither do the poor
We're all standing on the precipice
Of fragile peace
...and certain war