The Short Story Long - People Are Getting Better lyrics

[Hook] It's alright It's okay Ask me about tomorrow Only here today And as for next week As for next year The future, my regards Know I'll be here They say people are getting better People are okay But you see everything can be narrowed down Into the truth behind you You just gotta know where to look You gotta know where to find it They say they built a pawn shop Right on the spot where the Devil fell Because even when you are broke You still got something you can sell Hell, the guy on the podium says he sells truth But you can smell all the politics on his breath He's been doing too many shots of taxes and d**h There's a guy on my street corner Who says he sells freedom He'll even give me the needles if I'm broke if I need 'em But you see I know what I'm missin' So I ain't gotta try it Because freedom ain't freedom if you gotta buy it But I have no grand plan for the great escape And even though I got a pretty decent cape in my closet When I rip open my shirt, there is no "S" on my chest I'm no Superman No adopted bulletproof savior of the earth I'm just like everyone else I have to be slapped on the a** at birth But for what it's worth I'm more like Clark Kent A journalist of the humanities That tells it like it is And now I'm telling you We live in a world where Darth Vader reminds us: "This is CNN" But even Darth Vader stuttered When we heard about these kids Who turned their school into a shooting range And the whole world sat by like a baby in a sh**ty diaper Crying out for change [Hook] But what about the grade ten dropouts With the grade two reading levels That play Russian Roulette with guns They found on their playground Whispering "Don't worry Even if it does happen It will take less than a minute" Because I guess, even the word "funeral" Still has the word "fun" in it And in order to re-insure ourselves We listen to people Because people say that people are getting better People are okay But if you look outside your window The children aren't playing marbles or jacks They are vengefully stepping on cracks To break their mother's backs When they can't have their way Sure, people are getting better People are okay And we send our children running towards the future As if the future is the place to be And all we can see is the hope bleeding out of their eyes As they look up and watch the airlines plummet from the skies And they run past a young girl in a small cubby hole Full of corroding cement Because she doesn't run anymore See, she's already dropped out of the race And in case you couldn't tell By looking at the lesions on her face She hangs a cardboard sign around her neck that reads: "I have AIDS, Please, leave me alone" And the kids put more quarters into the phone And then cry into the flat line of the dial tone And Mom and Dad say "No, you can't come home" [Hook] They say, people are getting better People are okay But I can only say that none of this is okay The world is not okay And I'm no better than anyone else I'm looking for answers Stumbling around in the dark Curling up like a question mark Because I don't know what to do But I know you have to care about the world Because it doesn't care about you