(lyrics are written by Jello Biafra)
Around our nation's capital
There's a freeway 8 lanes wide
White concrete ringed around the city
For those who want inside
Get on, get off
Ignore everything to the sides
In your midst I drive
While homeboys in the back of the van make drugs
Wanna hide something like a crack lab?
Just put it in plain sight
Only stop to refuel and unload
More poison to tear more lives apart
Whole neighbourhoods are goin' psycho
Gang wars like never before
Better lock your doors, buy some guns
And pray for martial law
On the Washington, D.C. beltway
Around and around I go
In the black van with no windows
And a chimney puffing smoke
b***** headlines in the news each day
Drug "crisis" everywhere
So much comes in so easy
It's as though someone wants it there
It would be a little obvious
To fence off all the slums
Hand out machine guns
To the poor in the projects
And watch 'em kill each other off
A more subtle genocide is when
The only hope for the young
Is to join the Army or slowly die
Wall Street or Crack Dealer Avenue
The last roads left in the American Dream
Wall Street or Crack Dealer Avenue
Wall Street or Crack Dealer Avenue
Only one road leads to this neighbourhood
Little kids wanna sell drugs when they grow up
The folks might get just a little upset
If they knew where that dope comes from
From Columbia to the Contras
To our Air Force bases, where we trade it for guns
The moral equivalent of a serial killer
And his CIA friends
Call the shots from the White House
But now that we own the media too
Those stories just don't run
On the Washington, D.C. beltway
Around and around I go
In a black van with no windows
And a chimney puffing smoke
Same gang that ran smack in Vietnam
Ain't got no reason to fear
Just get a Vice President so dumb
The crook at the top never gets impeached
That sure was easy wasn't it?
That sure was easy wasn't it?
More crack, more panic, more cops, more jails
You see emergency, total war
You see emergency, total war
You see a black face, you see a crackhead
You see a black face, you see a crackhead
You see a black face, you see Willie Horton with a knife
You see Willie Horton with a knife
You've seen one Willie Horton you've seen them all
They're everywhere, I know
You asked for it - you've got it
Drug suspects have no rights at all
Property seized and sold before trial
Labor camps on American soil
Neo-n*** bootboys
That the cops never seem to arrest
Prowl neighborhoods with baseball bats
Why do they get so much press?
Mein Kampf the mini series
Oliver North, "patriotic" hero
The leader of tomorrow is yours today
Finally gotcha psyched for a police state
On the Washington, D.C. beltway
Around and around I go
In a black van with no windows
And a chimney puffing smoke
My van's a mobile oven now
That burns the bodies you never see
Just like in Chile or Guatemala
People just seem to disappear
Just like Rome
We fell asleep when we got spoiled
Ignore human rights in the rest of the world
Ya might as well lose your own
As the noose of narco-militarism
Tightens 'round our necks
We worry about burning flags
And pee in jars at work
To keep our jobs
But if someone came for you one night
And dragged you away
Do you really think your neighbours
Would even care?
Do you really think your neighbours
Would even care?
Embrace the Red, White and Blue Reich (12 X)
Around our nation's capital
There's a freeway 8 lanes wide
White concrete ringed around the city
For those who want inside
Get on, get off
Ignore everything to the sides
In your midst I drive
While homeboys in the back of the van make drugs
Wanna hide something like a crack lab?
Just put it in plain sight
Only stop to refuel and unload
More poison to tear more lives apart
Whole neighbourhoods are goin' psycho
Gang wars like never before
Better lock your doors, buy some guns
And pray for martial law
On the Washington, D.C. beltway
Around and around I go
In the black van with no windows
And a chimney puffing smoke
b***** headlines in the news each day
Drug "crisis" everywhere
So much comes in so easy
It's as though someone wants it there
It would be a little obvious
To fence off all the slums
Hand out machine guns
To the poor in the projects
And watch 'em kill each other off
A more subtle genocide is when
The only hope for the young
Is to join the Army or slowly die
Wall Street or Crack Dealer Avenue
The last roads left in the American Dream
Wall Street or Crack Dealer Avenue
Wall Street or Crack Dealer Avenue
Only one road leads to this neighbourhood
Little kids wanna sell drugs when they grow up
The folks might get just a little upset
If they knew where that dope comes from
From Columbia to the Contras
To our Air Force bases, where we trade it for guns
The moral equivalent of a serial killer
And his CIA friends
Call the shots from the White House
But now that we own the media too
Those stories just don't run
On the Washington, D.C. beltway
Around and around I go
In a black van with no windows
And a chimney puffing smoke
Same gang that ran smack in Vietnam
Ain't got no reason to fear
Just get a Vice President so dumb
The crook at the top never gets impeached
That sure was easy wasn't it?
That sure was easy wasn't it?
More crack, more panic, more cops, more jails
You see emergency, total war
You see emergency, total war
You see a black face, you see a crackhead
You see a black face, you see a crackhead
You see a black face, you see Willie Horton with a knife
You see Willie Horton with a knife
You've seen one Willie Horton you've seen them all
They're everywhere, I know
You asked for it - you've got it
Drug suspects have no rights at all
Property seized and sold before trial
Labor camps on American soil
Neo-n*** bootboys
That the cops never seem to arrest
Prowl neighborhoods with baseball bats
Why do they get so much press?
Mein Kampf the mini series
Oliver North, "patriotic" hero
The leader of tomorrow is yours today
Finally gotcha psyched for a police state
On the Washington, D.C. beltway
Around and around I go
In a black van with no windows
And a chimney puffing smoke
My van's a mobile oven now
That burns the bodies you never see
Just like in Chile or Guatemala
People just seem to disappear
Just like Rome
We fell asleep when we got spoiled
Ignore human rights in the rest of the world
Ya might as well lose your own
As the noose of narco-militarism
Tightens 'round our necks
We worry about burning flags
And pee in jars at work
To keep our jobs
But if someone came for you one night
And dragged you away
Do you really think your neighbours
Would even care?
Do you really think your neighbours
Would even care?
Embrace the Red, White and Blue Reich (12 X)