The Curtains Are Always Drawn

There's a sickness in the suburbs, there's a fever in the town

A quiet kind of warfare as the sun is going down

You used to know your neighbors, you used to know their names

Now you only know the flicker of their television flames

Behind the drawn curtains, a brand new kind of fear

Of saying the wrong thing to an ever-present ear

The trust that held the world together's turning into rust

A slow and creeping cancer of a national disgust

The kids don't play outside now after the streetlights have been lit

There's a feeling that the fabric of everything has ripped

And no one knows for certain who is watching who

Or what a person might be capable of doing to you

'Cause the curtains are always drawn now, the doors are always locked

The rhythm of the neighborhood has finally been stopped

By a paranoia gospel they've been preaching for a year

That the only thing you have to trust is your own righteous fear

Yeah, the curtains are always drawn now, a nation holds its breath

And mistakes a fearful silence for a peaceful kind of death.

You see a former friend at the grocery store today

And you both just look away, with nothing left to say

'Cause the distance is not miles now, the distance is a creed

A different set of facts, a different kind of need

For a world that makes them feel like they are safe and they are right

Even if it means extinguishing another person's light

So you just buy your milk and bread, and you hurry to your car

And you wonder how the hell the distance got to be this far

The kids don't play outside now after the streetlights have been lit

There's a feeling that the fabric of everything has ripped

And no one knows for certain who is watching who

Or what a person might be capable of doing to you

'Cause the curtains are always drawn now, the doors are always locked

The rhythm of the neighborhood has finally been stopped

By a paranoia gospel they've been preaching for a year

That the only thing you have to trust is your own righteous fear

Yeah, the curtains are always drawn now, a nation holds its breath

And mistakes a fearful silence for a peaceful kind of death.

This is how they win, you know, it's not with guns and tanks

It's with the quiet self-destruction of the cooperative ranks

By turning every person to an island of their own

The most effective tyrant is the one you feel alone.

'Cause the curtains are always drawn now, the doors are always locked

The rhythm of the neighborhood has finally been stopped

By a paranoia gospel they've been preaching for a year

That the only thing you have to trust is your own righteous fear

Yeah, the curtains are always drawn now, a nation holds its breath

And mistakes a fearful silence for a peaceful kind of death.