In 1956 president Eisenhower authorized the construction

of the national highway system to transport military equipment across the country

They cut their way through towns and cities, devastating local communities, businesses, and cultures; undermining the people's independence from corporate chains

Now thanks to lobbying corporations like Walmart, Target, and Amazon

They have a stranglehold on the American marketplace

And every single one of them feeds into

The Man

Hey! You! Who do you think you are?

To contravene will only get you so far

Fork in the road better be a knife

Take the heart of infrastructure’s life

Black emissions block the visions of a thousands lies

Manufactured artificial human lives

Arbitrary lines drawn in the sand

Our fate’s been chosen by The Man

The automotive industry spends nearly 100 million dollars a year

Bribing your politicians to keep us reliant on highways

They push us into over consumption, irreparably damaging the planet

And keep us all economically dependent on personal vehicles

The ability to ship goods quickly across the country feeds into mass production,

consumerism, and puts quantity over quality

Highway infrastructure in the United States is the veins and arteries of

The Man

Hey! You! Who do you think you are?

To contravene will only get you so far

Fork in the road better be a knife

Take the heart of infrastructure’s life

Black emissions block the visions of a thousands lies

Manufactured artificial human lives

Arbitrary lines drawn in the sand

Our fate’s been chosen by The Man

I guess the highways aren’t so bad

They make it easy to travel and they’re really convenient

But people got around just fine before the highways, right?

It’s not like you couldn’t travel across the country

Plus, we destroyed so much of the environment to build them,

Like way more than it’d take to build fuckin’ railroad tracks or some shit

And now I absolutely need a car to go to work and get groceries and see my friends

And I can’t even enjoy the scenery of my surroundings anymore

It’s just pavement, pavement, pavement

And there’s no fucking trees, the world’s on fire, there’s no birds or bees

And I can’t smell the flowers outside my own fucking apartment

Oh!

Penance!

Hey! You! Who do you think you are?

To contravene will only get you so far

Fork in the road better be a knife

Take the heart of infrastructure’s life

Black emissions block the visions of a thousands lies

Manufactured artificial human lives

Arbitrary lines drawn in the sand

Our fate’s been chosen by The Man