TOM WAITS lyrics - What Keeps Mankind Alive

(Weill/Brecht)



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 shriek the facts

Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts