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Lay It on the Line

from A Matter of Time by Ferocious Designs

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about

“Lay It on the Line” started out as a collaboration with John LeMasney for our old Technology and the Arts podcast in 2015. It was really just a chorus that I wrote and a verse that I built around a guitar riff John came up with. The initial lyrics were inspired by the Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of Ferguson in 2014. An incomplete, instrumental demo of the song was recorded in 2015, but the podcast and the collaboration came to a premature conclusion and the song was shelved. The combination of the pandemic and the wider BLM protests around the world in 2020 after the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and so many others resulted in my revisiting and completing the song.

lyrics

Look all around you
and see what's at stake.
A movement is coming
which side will you take?
Battle injustice
or stay on the side?
Will you stand up and fight
or will you just run and hide

Take a look at yourself
Are you doing anything that can help?
Take a look in your heart
It's time that you start doing your part

Life's not worth living
if you don't take a stand
and champion the causes
of your fellow man
Your apathy's weakness
Your silence a joke
How can you sit there
when the system is broke?
Time to wake up your mind
and lay it on the line
Gotta lay it on the line

How can you keep saying
that nothing is wrong
when what's come to light
has been like this all along
The shield has been broken
the trust is betrayed
Lives have been stolen
by the system we made

Take a look at yourself
Are you doing anything that can help?
Take a look in your heart
It's time that you start doing your part

Life's not worth living
if you don't take a stand
and champion the causes
of your fellow man
Your apathy's weakness
Your silence a joke
How can you sit there
when the system is broke?
Time to wake up your mind
and lay it on the line
Gotta lay it on the line

(It's time to wake up and understand)
Now is the time
(It's time to support your fellow 'man)
For us to understand
(It's time to step up and do what's right)
(It's time to get up and join the fight)
(It's time to wake up and understand)
We must unite
(It's time to support your fellow 'man)
As one common 'man
(It's time to step up and do what's right)
(It's time to get up and join the fight)

Take a stand

Take a look at yourself
Are you doing anything that can help?
Take a look in your heart
It's time that you start doing your part

Life's not worth living
if you don't take a stand
and champion the causes
of your fellow man
Your apathy's weakness
Your silence a joke
How can you sit there
when the system is broke?
Time to wake up your mind
and lay it on the line
Gotta lay it on the line

credits

from A Matter of Time, track released June 18, 2021
Words by Brian Kelley.
Music by Brian Kelley and John LeMasney.
Performed, mixed and produced by Brian Kelley.

© 2021 Brian J. Kelley. All rights reserved.

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Ferocious Designs Hamilton Township, New Jersey

Ferocious Designs is the mostly DIY music project of central New Jersey-based songwriter Brian Kelley.

Influences: Peter Gabriel, Todd Rundgren, Kate Bush, Midge Ure/Ultravox, Howard Jones, Talk Talk/Mark Hollis, Tears For Fears, Simple Minds, Lo Moon. ... more

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