- Songwriters: Greg Graffin
Blacktop pavement cover me
Like a chemical reaction or a steam roller
Spreading randomly
There's a distant pause and low frequency
It tickles my ear, rumbles under my feet
And it shakes the leaves off of every tree violently
What pretension! Everlasting peace
Everything must cease
Institution on the hill
Like a beacon in the mind of an ancestor
To ignite a people's will
There's a shadowed stain on the west facade
It has spread like decay to enshroud the fraud
And the descendants find oh so odd, oh so odd
What pretension! Everlasting peace
Everything must cease
Grave memorial hewn white stone
Like the comforting caress of a mother
Or a friend you've always known
It evokes such pain and significance
What was once, since reduced to remembrance
And the generations passed without recompense, oh
What pretension! Everlasting peace
Everything must cease
What pretension! Everlasting peace
Everything must
What does this song mean to you?