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See the way the wind blows
Lives are interwined
Watch the way the world goes
The man deals out our plight
Jester in the corner
Laughs without a sound
Jester in the corner
Malady abounds
In our souls
See the way the sun sets
Twilight of this life
The man is making little bets
Playing with our lives
All that I believe now
Anything is possible
A simple explanation
For the evil in this world
And in our souls
In our souls
Come down to sorry and sable
It's always the man
Always keeping you down
Bow down cause I see it before me
Shadow and light
That always keeps you running
Shut up you talk too much
Pay the man
Shut up you talk too much
Look at you and your struggle for freedom
But you ain't nothing
We all pay the man for living
Wouldn't it be nice for a change now
To be unchained
My life is for me now
But this is life
Pay the man
Shut up you talk too much
Pay the man
Shut up you talk too much
Pay the man
Lives are interwined
Watch the way the world goes
The man deals out our plight
Jester in the corner
Laughs without a sound
Jester in the corner
Malady abounds
In our souls
See the way the sun sets
Twilight of this life
The man is making little bets
Playing with our lives
All that I believe now
Anything is possible
A simple explanation
For the evil in this world
And in our souls
In our souls
Come down to sorry and sable
It's always the man
Always keeping you down
Bow down cause I see it before me
Shadow and light
That always keeps you running
Shut up you talk too much
Pay the man
Shut up you talk too much
Look at you and your struggle for freedom
But you ain't nothing
We all pay the man for living
Wouldn't it be nice for a change now
To be unchained
My life is for me now
But this is life
Pay the man
Shut up you talk too much
Pay the man
Shut up you talk too much
Pay the man
Lyrics submitted by sawg
Track duration: 08:10
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I believe this track is anti-establishment against the Fed.
How I hear it, "The Man" governs how we all live via laws and police enforcement.
The most obvious point being, the lines 'pay the man'. My opinion is this means taxes.
I don't know, taxes seem very obvious to me.
Two things are certain:
death and taxes.
This song is the reason I love the Offspring more than any other punk band. They are actually *saying* something. They're serving up a concept for us on a silver platter: Don't pay the man just for living. It's unnecessary
"the man" is the jester in the corner, laughing silently to himself, getting paid for nothing. The malady abounds in our souls. We invite the man into our souls to create disaster and mischief, AND WE PAY HIM for it. The voice of this idealist isn't the band talking to us, it's the idealist pontificating about the state of affairs in our lives.
Dexter's voice in the harder parts is sneering. "look at you, and your struggle for freedom". He is the jester. He's just playing with us - he has the power and he knows it.
The very last part is the fight. The idealist becomes powerful, and his whiny/ethereal woooahs become wails and screams of power. "my life is for me - " and the song just ends.
Dexter wants us to fight and convince our friends and family to never pay the man.
Personally, I always found myself thinking about religion with this song. While lines like "The Man is making little bets, playing with our lives" could apply as much to the banking system as to Abrahamic religion, "All that I believe now/Anything is possible/A simple explanation/For the evil in this world/And in our souls" is to me more about the cop-out of attributing the world's evil to a single, easily explainable, easily SHUNNABLE source, instead of acknowledging our own duality.
Between then and now, my music influence has varied greatly, hence the reason me noticing this!
For instance, right at the end, you can clearly hear some Janes Addiction going on :-)
Any ideas?
", and that wind never seems to understand that our lives are individual and makes us pay to be same "The man is making little bets, Playing with our lives" and does not want to listen, "Shut up you talk too much"