Oh how I love Swans. Ten years ago, when I was a teenager, my art teacher (taking lessons outside of school) Steven Archer told me one week that my homework was to go out and buy the Swans album Various Failures. “Put in the second CD, put it on track 10, put the volume all the way up, and press play.” That was my homework. I didn’t have to paint something about the song, I just had to listen to it (the song was called Eyes Of Nature). It changed my life. Swans is what I listen to when people that I care about die.

lyrics after the cut

Swans: God Loves America

And All Across America
The Poison Fires Glow
And In The Blood Of Our Procreation
Annihilation Grows
Yes Love Was Made For Slaves Like Us
Designed To Fetishize
Consumption, Waste And An Identity
Based On A Dying Lie
So God Forgive America
The End Of History Is Now
And God May Save The Victim
But Only The Murderer Holds Real Power
We Came Across The Seas
We’d Fill With Offal And Disgust
And Any Object Industry Required
We Bought, Enslaved, Or We Crushed
And Now Our Minds Are As Naked As The Paradise We
Stripped
And Our Reward Is Our Entropy
Our Emptiness Is Our Gift
So God Forgive America
And Every Human On This Earth
And God Forgive The Ruined Lives
And Nothing Is What It’s Worth