We were the orphans of suburban slums   Raised by retail clerks and food court bums   Our parents were away under fluorescent suns to give us what they never had   We were the children of the broken glass where the parking lots yield to yellow grass   We lodged our broomsticks in the pavement cracks and we flew our scarlet flags      And we wrapped rebellion’s arms around our waists   And we held our hearts out for the world to taste   And injustice was meant for our hands to erase   And you know we had a lot of work to do      We are the siblings of an endless war, which our elders wage on distant shores   We whined and kicked and screamed upon the kitchen floor and we threatened to run away   We are the children of the hourglass; our ambitions fell like grains of sand   We waited for the echoes of our protest chants so we could hear our own decay      We sang through riot barricades   And our voices bled, they bled onto the tape   We can hear it when those records play   And we know it’s the sound of our own decay   It’s the sound of our decay   It’s the sound of our decay   It’s the sound of our decay      And we pulled rebellion’s arms from round our waists   And we hid our hearts to shield them from disgrace   And injustice laughed aloud and rubbed it in our face   So you know we’ve got a lot of work to do   We’ve got a lot of work to do   We’ve got a lot of work to do   We’ve got a lot of work to do