William S. Burroughs - What Keeps Mankind Alive?

(from The Threepenny Opera)

Producer: Hal Willner (April 6, 1956 – April 6, 2020. R.I.P.)
Lyricist: Bertolt Brecht
from the Album: Kurt Weill: September Songs
William S. Burroughs · Kurt Weill · Doug Wieselman · Fred Lonberg-Holm · James Pugliese · Anthony Coleman · Roy Nathanson
Released on: 1997-05-09

You gentlemen who think you have a mission

To purge us of the seven deadly sins

Should first sort out the basic food position

Then start your preaching, that's where it begins

 You lot, who preach restraint and watch your waist as well

 Should learn, for once, the way the world is run

 However much you twist, or whatever lies that you tell

 Food is the first thing, morals follow on

 So first make sure that those who are now starving

 get proper helpings, when we all start carving

 What keeps mankind alive?

What keeps mankind alive? The fact that millions

are daily tortured, stifled, punished, silenced and oppressed

Mankind can keep alive thanks to its brilliance

in keeping its humanity repressed

And for once you must try not to shirk the facts

Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts!

(source)