i woke up with this tune in my mind so i put pen to paper, let the two intertwine they say who you are is what you do with your time & i've been doing just fine, staying true to the grind i keep my chips in a line & my raps in stacks until the table gets unstable from the weight & collapses & when it all comes crashing down i'll keep laughing flashing over beats to keep your feet tapping i write for the common man who thinks uncommonly & spit it for the cats who used to ask what was wrong with me this is for the people who support true artistry & this for the folks who feel it pumping throught their arteries this is for the part of me that's always felt invisible & for anyone who ever taught me to be an individual from the non-traditional to the ritualistic this is for musicians, macks, models, & misfits for haters, biters, players, writers poets, pimps, punks, & prize fighters for gamers, rhymers, skaters & bikers heads in the cipher, the temps & the lifers this is for the all-nighters & nine to fivers for the fact finders & the one-track minders from the big-timers to all the nickel & dimers this is for the in-crowd & the outsiders for all the fans whose only concern is if it keeps their heads nodding while the wheels are turning & for the fanatics who eat, live, & breathe it this is for the doubters who just won't believe it i put it down for whoever wants to pick it up so listen up, we're going to spark it up quick enough to make heads start twisting, & get your fists pumping like pistons until the cops got you ceasing & desisting this is for my party people up in the place to be this is for the heads who've been waiting so patiently this is for my family & this is for my people this is for all the fakes who front & fall feeble the way i see it there's no reason for exclusion that's just somebody trying to feed you an illusion trying to keep you down & compound your confusion to keep you from noticing that your consuming their pollution so go & get your gas masks, strap on your boots let's kick out the president & bring home the troops let's take it back to the days of revolution when a leaders meaning was to pave the way for resolution this is for the bruised, the battered, & the abused this is for the shook ones rattling in their shoes this is for the blues, jazz, soul, & hard rock this is for funk, folk, from hiphop to foxtrot one more chance to advance out of circumstance one more dance to get you moving like worker ants so go through the motions until you've got the momentum then make your move, but don't forget to make mention to originators, creators, & innovators this is for every underdog who ever made it major this is for the minimum wagers in imminent danger of living their days in slave labor this is just a small representation of just whats been going down, down in the basement this is just a piece of the puzzle for placement into proper perspective & daily rotation

verse 1: check the listings, yo, my name is mister jones & i'm known for spitting a tongue twister or two at you & your crew to get it hyper been in it for a minute, man consider me a lifer striking like a viper, i'll send a V.I.P. to the E.R. in the first three bars see, first you'll see stars & next you'll see nothing it's sort of like the effects of too much weed puffing i'm a bad mother uffing man, coming off at the cuff & and i'm keeping it on the up & up, never stopping for nothing beating on top of tables & speaking long as i'm able to keep it so unstable you'll be needing new speaker cable when i'm done rapping like i'm doing laps around the sun snapping into action at the tapping of a drum basking in the rapturous aftermath when i come blasting back at these bastards who keep asking me where i'm from... chorus: we're here to get you moving out of your current state of confusion until the walls all around you start falling apart it goes, welcome to a brand new revolution that's not recommended for the weak at heart we'll get your body parts pumping like electrocution until your head starts thumping & you lose control now, welcome to a brand new revolution that's not recommended for those without soul verse 2: it used to be hard to tell, until i broke up out the shell & stopped giving a hell about hate like, oh well i'm here to dispel all of your misconceptions about the state of hiphop & it's direction because just the other day i shuttered to hear somebody mutter some crap about how rap was headed to the gutter so i uttered some words that made 'em stutter & stop cold see, they said the same thing about rock & roll man, we gon' be alright because me & mine we keep it tight deep in the night writing instead of sleeping until the sunlight comes creeping through the cracks in the curtains & get one fact certain we've been breaking our backs working on making our tracks perfect then taking it back to when rap was bigger than flashes of cash & kids falling flat on their asses quicker than cigarette ashes so i figured the faster i get on my feet the better i can be at trying to stay ahead of the street because she's a heck of a thief that keeps trying to hold me under swipe my soul & control my hunger but i'm still starving, carving holes in lumber so when i catch wreck it echoes like rolls of thunder over hills & valleys, across the mountains & plains through all terrain of killer cali, kids keep shouting my name mister jones, you did it, now you're fly without wings just go ahead & keep on doing your thing and i tell 'em... chorus (x 2)

verse 1: i've trickled throught thickets of wicked minds holding picket signs with sick pigeons, tripping in dimensions of a different kind while kicking it with the crickets & itching to ditch my fishing line but picking my stitches to pitch a dime half the fricking time switching religious type missions to hit the viscious skies sticking to magician-like niches to get you hypnotized basing incisions on gravitational positions tied to hasty decisions made while contemplating the crimson tide so let the quitters slide but tell the kids to get inside because when the clipper ships collide only the quickest fish survive & it's the pits to nix your pride once the riptides have arrived so when you sense the mystics flying you best be fixed to hitch a ride you see they signify the dignified with wisdom in disguise while the victimized get symbolized as martyrs meant to die & i never once tried to be thorn in your side but i'd do anything to prove to you that your still alive i've come from something nothing more than jumping ship to get my point across paddling past thoughts of all these heads who said that hope was lost tossing rocks & cinder blocks to build myself a sanctuary as solid as the very day that i rose & chose this weight to carry so i bury myself inside of my pages then i tear 'em out the books & let 'em out of their cages i take my chances sort of like a wager in vegas just to make my own advances on a regular basis... chorus: i still believe in a thing called hope because i can see it in the faces of folks with the faith to cope & i never meant to be led to a loss of nerve but the headlines that i've read have left my head a bit disturbed so i walked away from everything to regain my perspective i looked out on this ocean full of notions i'd rejected while reflecting in the light that bounces off my every word i still believe there's some things that need to be heard... verse 2: i woke up smoking herbals & scribbling my riddled verbals in this journal just to keep a cursed furnace burning fertile at the center of a circle where i sit & collect the evidence of organic intelligence born out of the negligence of stepping without weapons through this city of my residence where it's live by the sword or you can die for your dead presidents and my mother never taught me how to hover only how to sneak around at night & never blow my cover like a daytripper turned nocturnal page ripper walking up the river while i'm talking to the grave digger & he says to tell y'all to pray quicker because the warships are approaching while you're worshipping your faded figures but the bigger the trigger, the better the odds that when the threat is in your face you'll forget the names of your gods & i've studied the side effects of many a medicine in hopes to finally have some good advice to give to my brethren pulling rabbits out of hats, habits out of my head & i'll put this planet back on its axis path after i'm dead but for now we keep it tilted down because we built this town on sloped ground to cope with the broken sound of a million brilliant pixels depicting peace instead of the heartbeats that ceased when the beast was released i seek heat & peak when the beat is complete for pete's sake, i'll bleed lakes for my freedom of speech because i... chorus (x 2)

chorus: you've got your ups & downs, your highs & your lows your befores & afters, goodbyes & hellos yeses & nos, doors open & close it's like a feather it goes wherever the wind blows with the ups & downs, the highs & the lows the befores & afters, goodbyes & hellos yeses & nos, doors open & close it's like a feather it goes wherever the wind blows... verse 1: you ever woke up in the morning on the wrong side of sanity? cursing holy calamity & questioning humanity because yesterday you went to sleep & had it all figured out but by the time today came, things somehow got riddled about rattling doubt in your noggin, until you're nodding in submission & wishing that you'd have just listened to your intuition until it's turning your insides out, allowing the outside in & now everything you've been about is lost like feathers in the wind & before you knew it a happy ending seemed imaginary you forgot to not let the word surrender enter your vocabulary sometimes we have to vary from the beaten path just to understand the necessary pieces of the past and the reasons why the seasons fly away & never last longer than it takes to scatter the pieces of shattered glass look, i'm sick of sitting here debating & pretending spending all my time elevating & descending in the... chorus verse2: i never said i was a perfect person more like a cursed, worthless version, solitary submergion so deep that you can't keep from feeling badly for time away from family & the people who can't see what my life equals now i've tried to make it up with the fews & far-betweens hardly seen by certain folks when i'm focused on keeping the aura clean but i'm green with nausea for any grief that i've caused to the ones who all gave applause to me long before i was plausibly anything even remotely resembling fresh so quote me in attempting the best i can to confess i wrote these lines to symbolize the weight on my chest & to show you i've been pressed to try & clean up this mess because the stress of daily life has left some nerves exposed but underneath i'm still the same, i just changed my clothes & now i'm viewing what i'm doing as a chance to show you i did a lot to grow from the man you think you know and so.. it goes & it goes & it goes... up, down, high, low before, after, goodbye, hello yes, no, open, closed & it goes & it goes up, down, high, low before, after, goodbye, hello yes, no, open, closed it's like a feather, it goes wherever the wind blows...

verse 1: i've been a hellion with rebellion in my genes since before i learned to walk & started talking to machines & if there's one thing that i've learned from being locked up in the lab it's that sometimes you've got to speak your mind to keep from going mad i've had a lot of time to think about the past & how it all comes back to haunt me when i'm daunted by my task but i leave my dusty fingerprints on dirty glass so that future generations can interpret the shadows cast from this mathematician turned black magician who's back in position to shatter raps past tradition scattering this sick addiction through your vascular system to capture the attention of the cats who actually listen now look, i'm back in the mix with a bag of new tricks i had to stack up my bricks & then smash 'em to bits so i could catch the gist of deconstruction now if i could only convince my feet to function because... chorus: i've got to keep it moving, got to get it going now i've got to take it to the border, no braking or slowing down because i've got to make it somewhere, sometime soon before i'm out of food & all the fuel is consumed yo, i've got to keep it moving, got to get it going now i've got to take it to the limits, no braking or slowing down i've got to make it somewhere, sometime soon because i'm way past empty & i'm running on fumes verse 2: so pick me up & set me free or put me down & let me be just let me see my destiny before i act too recklessly to take it back & ask forgiveness, give me one more chance to live this life the way it was intended, to escape before i'm apprehended mending stitches in my wings, spending days awake at night sending signals mixed with smoke & bending rope for taking flight breaking right despite the signs to keep from being left behind i'm on the line of levels because god & the devil are both friends of mine & at the end of the line, i'll say my prayers & count the wishes that i ditched in town when the rain was coming down so vicious that it almost knocked me off my feet while i was talking to an awkward beat & walking through a street full of people all deemed as obsolete sometimes i think i'm on the brink of extinction like an incidental victim of accidental deletion like i had to abort somewhere short of completion but i hear voices in my sleep telling me to keep reaching because... chorus verse 3: i've seen a lot of things out on these lonely roads & where the hell i'll be tomorrow, heaven only knows but we'll keep storming, trying to formulate a plan so i can find me some stability & finally make a stand beyond the shadow of a doubt that i'm still travelling a route between the lines that i've been trying to battle my way out but, there still ain't no rest for the wicked, so we kick it underneath with the other beasts who couldn't swing the ticket through the thicket, now i'm running with the wildlife & after dark i'll be sparking the pilot light trying to pick my brain apart & reconnect the wires right so i can get my aim locked tight for the firefight sights set on the next level, heavy on the pedal like a running rebel pounding the pebbles i get down for the sake of breaking the mold making every moment my own until i'm taking the gold

verse 1: (this is not a love song) it was just another morning as ordinary as ever but she couldn't wait to see him, it seemed like it'd been forever so despite the weather she headed in to get ready so excited that she could barely hold her pretty head steady it's been ten months she's been sitting at home since he left her alone & flew into a foreign warzone now he's finally coming home on leave to see the ones he left behind to be all he could be & she can hardly keep her self contained as she departs in the car & it starts to rain with an image of him memorized inside of her brain she can't help but hope he's coming back the same as he left, so with a deep breath she drives & the fear inside puts a couple of tears in her eyes but she just wipes them away, smiles, & thinks of his face & how many days it's been since she's felt his embrace what a waste the time apart has felt like to her how that flight took her heart & put a knife right through her it's like everything changed when his plane left the ground & she felt so strange as she drove back to town knowing there was no way she'd ever understand the things he'd seen & done in the name of his homeland but all she wanted was to go back to the way things were before he left that day... chorus: ...and when love gets tainted sometimes the piece gets painted a different texture than we expected now every movement's misdirected because something somewhere got disconnected when love gets tainted sometimes the piece gets painted a different texture than we expected now every moment's misdirected because something somewhere got disconnected... verse 2: he knows he's a different man now and he can't even begin to comprehend how he's supposed to go back to the life that he led before he left & let the war get into his head he's spent so long being reprogrammed he forgot what it's like to be his own man but he knows that somewhere at home is a girl that used to be the only thing in the world that ever mattered, but even that's not enough to keep him from believing the fact that circumstances change & people do to & every chance that's he's taken has led him through to a new point of view, a new frame of mind he knew now that it was bound to take some time to find himself in a place that felt like home with all these feelings that he's dealt with alone for so long, he don't know how to express so he sits & he sweats & he gets so depressed & he seems so distant, he runs & he shoves away the world & even the girl that he loves can't get close to the man that she fell for he's seen the sins that men go to hell for & some things you just never forget you just try to adjust to living with the regret... chorus (x 2)

verse 1: still painting pictures that put purpose into perspective drop the needle on it & listen to all these cuts that i've collected tore down the set-up & left town to water-walk but never thought to keep my head up & almost drowned in utter shock & by the time i'd found my way back to the sands of the mainland i'd reverted to a skin & bones version of an early caveman with no recollection of balancing on the wire & nothing but sticks & stones i quickly reinvented fire & burned myself a bridge just long enough to hit the deep end then dove into a coma when i couldn't make the sleep end i drove over the border on what started as a quick spin & ended up dreaming myself seemingly to my wit's end then there amidst the tremors & shivering rivers i remembered every bit of bitterness last december delivered & while the weather withered i was there to witness it first person bursting into flames while this curse worsens... chorus: ...& you can liken this to driftwood, smashing into pieces on the beaches of this god-forsaken island, somewhere in the furthest reaches of an ocean that has yet to be polluted by man & they would call it what they wanted, but they all would understand that it was driftwood, smashed to pieces on the beaches of this god-forsaken island somewhere in the furthest reaches of an ocean that has yet to be polluted by man & they would call it what they wanted, but they all would understand... verse 2: in an age of death valley days & dragonfly nights when every breath of the haze is intercepted by satellites but every step into the maze directs me further out of sight & i've been dead for days, thus this coffin & candlelight by which i found the time to write the world this letter on some: hey there, how's the weather? have things gotten any better than they were before i left you all to crawl under this rock? singing praise the lord & pass the ammunition box squawking on a walkie-talkie frequency that's been obsolete for decades like another walking head-case, talking until i'm red-faced because no one listens anyway, so we built ourselves this getaway then escaped to create in a place where at least the apes will appreciate a little innovation from a race based mainly on faith raised to waste space & say grace to save face left tracing the steps of a million mighty idols while walking the thin line between enlightened & suicidal... chorus ...& you can liken this to driftwood, smashing into pieces on the beaches of this god-forsaken island, somewhere in the furthest reaches of an ocean that has yet to be polluted by man & they would call it what they wanted, but they all would understand there was a ship inside that bottle that was waiting to float they took the wind out of his sails & he replaced it with hope then he built himself a fire out of the lessons he'd learned & set sail while the rest of 'em burned & you can liken this to driftwood.

verse 1 (tom knocks): i'm off the chart like bobby brown, dropping sounds popping off at the mouth like a blunt full of cess seeds let's lead the revolution & the resolution but bring a little loot in from all the pay-per-view t.v. i speak easy like the bootleg bars & hit topics like a rocket, shooting for the stars lost in a large sea of small fish official like referees when i call shit all fists to the ceilings if you're feeling what i'm spilling is appealing & there's one in a million chance you won't collapse & remember what we're building & bounce back like sonar, & so far succeeded rolling on like paraplegic when movement is needed i stay heated like the tropic, kicking scripts like a prophet hit the mic, then the market, while y'all just microscopic i'm nice in the nights of open-mic getdowns i buckle knees like church altars so you starters need to sit down i kick rounds like shotguns & knock 'em out the box everything spoken is dope enough to land your ass up in detox a clean shot to the cranium, harder than titanium-steel i shuffle rhymes all the time little buddy, whats the deal? i bust heavy, flow like water through a broken levee... verse 2 (icarus jones): ...and i step up in the function with my game face on tricks laced in my sleeve like a rapping james bond same song, different key, & i'll be spitting 'til i'm hoarse holed up in a shack, tapping my raps out in morse code so hold your horses back & call the cavalry then take it down to the source to count up the casualties & actually there's more left laying than standing waving their hands, nodding, & not saying a damn thing awe-stricken by jaws equipped for raw ripping flipping topics off of the top because i'm not tripping picking pockets clean of their lint from ten paces & we'll turn a flock of emcees into a sea of grim faces (on a daily basis) when union labor's in the building better batten down the hatches & believe that it's the real thing no drills, straight four-alarm blazes now look at all these cats acting hard in their cages wondering why they ain't getting nowhere their whole lives passing by while they sit & they stare and i could really care less if my vehicle's coasting as long as i've got the momentum to keep it in motion i'll be roasting rubber to get the rust out the gears, leaving passer-bys pissed, picking dust out their ears & traffic cops stopping, asking where the fire is at & i'm like 'the only flames i've seen were behind the tires in back.'

verse 1: fresh out of quarantine, still on the sick side neck-deep, trying to keep both feet shifting holding on with a grip tighter than a riptide & i can't feel nothing but the music, i'm slipping tripping through the street to the beat of my own drum all riled up, wild-eyed like i'm on one sifting through the sand as it shifts in an hourglass sunset behind my back, following the shadow cast searching for a sign, or at least for a little sanity still seeking out the secrets of defeating gravity flying high as a kite with no strings attached to it collapse right into a ring of fire & mash through it without a singe, thinking if this all ends here, let it be, i'm already on a loose hinge truth is that it's just as much a part of me as the blood that pumps from my heart through my arteries and... chorus: ...i can't feel nothing but the music, i'm slipping neck-deep, trying to keep both feet shifting living with this addiction, ain't a damn thing different i can't feel nothing but the music, i'm slipping can't feel nothing but the... can't feel nothing but the... can't feel nothing but the music, i'm slipping... (x 2) verse 2: all wrapped up in the havoc & haze sitting spaced out, staring at the static for days & when the thoughts start to gather into patterns of rage i watch the words burn holes through the back of the page spent the better part of my childhood trapped in a cage then came right back to renovate it after the blaze tore the roof off just so i could stand in the rain & rearrange a few things in the back of my brain it's sort of strange how mixed a head can get when it's force-fed religion from a television set then studied by the satellites to measure the effect given one pill to remember & the other to forget flash back to the grill with the will to survive still alive, staying high for the thrill of the ride getting by with a little bit of innovation, in the basement integrating my intent on sitting in the sky... chorus fresh out of quarantine, still on the sick side (x 3) holding on with a grip tighter than a riptide pumped full of thorazine, got to get the 'scrip signed (x 3) docs keep telling me i'm still on the sick side chorus

verse 1: you can watch it spread like a crack in the cement it ain't hard to tell, but it's hard as hell to prevent the event horizon from rising up so frequently that you'll be in need of psychiatric treatment before the evening's over & all the freaks are sober & hung over the rest of the weekend y'all will be in the corner, feeling over the border sweat pouring out of you while you're twitching like you're tweaking leaning on the speaker & looking like you're over the deep end a gee attempting to repent for all his indecency see, i ain't seen a single celebrity recently to heat it up on a completely different frequency so i get it leaking just to practice what i'm preaching i'm leaving greedy leaders with a speedy impeachment & every single suckers catching a piece of the presentation i'm bringing, no hesitation, let it begin... chorus: everybody wanted to claim the crown but couldn't nobody hold the weight when it all came down then i heard somebody said hiphop was dead man, it's alive & well, it's right here, right now (x 2) verse 2: quite a few years ago a good homie of mine wanted me to get down & spit a couple of rhymes so we recorded a track to put the name on the map & once i heard the people react i never looked back in fact, that's where the jones came from in the first place the birthplace of me being prepared for the worst-case the last trace of rubble from the bubble that burst with a thirst to diversify verse after verse i always heard there'd be days like this but i never knew just how high i'd have to raise my fists i've got a good sense of keeping my head in the clouds & i've been good since i was just playing around now we stay laying it down, relaying the sound started making the rounds, look at where we're taking it now breaking it out & making the amount count bringing every house in every town down before we bounce out so get out now if you want to avoid the boom when we lower it, it's likely to destroy the room so presume the worst when you see the fumes disperse then reverse the tune & review the verse... chorus (x 2) ... verse 3: and you can keep back-tracking it to way before the rapture hit back when cats still came attacking it immaculate before the aim of the game became so inaccurate & if you weren't here for that, man, you don't know the half of it i have to admit that something disappeared or maybe throught the bitter years i developed a different ear but i remember hearing hits that were instantly crystal clear as reasons why i picked this here profession & stayed this sincere to those that listen, so with every composition i've been trying to position my people deeper in the mission i've been dying to keep this alive & fight for it's survival since they left it for dead & never bothered to check the vitals abandoned by the wayside so management could save face when the landslide hit in exactly the same place where they struck gold back when the story was told then sold to the highest bidder & left broke in the bitter cold chorus (x 2)