Lyrics

I got friends who live in cities
With brewpubs and bike lanes
Who like sweet tattoos and foreign films
And ancient grains
Who seek out the finest frothiest
Flat whites and macchiatos
Who eat cheese made out of cashews
And CBD gelatos
And I got friends who live in small towns
Who like to shoot at deer
Who like dogs that like working
Who like beer that tastes like beer
Who say yes sir and thank you ma’am
And even God bless y’all
Who might castrate and brand
At a testicle festival
And we’re gonna need a bigger tent to fit us all in

I got friends who give their kids names
Like Kai and Leaf and Arlo
Who feel like their fellow grownups
Failed the grownups of tomorrow
And I got friends who give their kids names
Like Colton and Shelby
Who think raisin’ em to respect the flag
And their elders is healthy
I got friends who go to seminars
And ayahuasca retreats
Who might spill their deepest secrets
To the kindred souls they meet
And I got friends who don’t say a lot
But mean everything they say
Who believed every word of Scripture
‘Til their daughter turned out gay
We’re gonna need a bigger tent to fit us all in

‘Cause it hurts sometimes to hear my friends
Talk about my other friends
As if everything that’s going wrong has got to do with them
I’m not shrugging off real differences
Everybody’s got ‘em
Just saying it’s less about the left and right
Than the top against the bottom

Looking at the way some of my friends
Talk online today
I’m just wondering if some common sense
Got lost along the way
I mean, am I alone here
Or does it strike anybody else
Like every side’s slowly turning into
A parody of itself?
And I don’t know about you but it’s looking
Pretty similar to me
What they’re doing there on Fox News
And on MSNBC
They’re both whipping up a culture war
It costs ‘em nothing to take sides in
While saying next to nothing
About all these workers organizing
We’re gonna need a bigger tent to fit us all in

See, the left I loved was punk rock
Class struggle and world peace
Now it’s greenwashing and obsessing
About the finer points of speech
As if making us use cardboard straws
Would somehow solve the problem
As if it matters less why people are homeless
Than what we choose to call ‘em
And I could be wrong but I imagine
It was with less of a smirk
That our grandpas fought the fascists
And built all the public works
Back when unions gave us weekends
Faced the bosses and their thugs
How come now it seems so joyless
Censorious and smug?
We’re gonna need a bigger tent to fit us all in

‘Cause with an ever-narrowing circle
Who think just the way we do
We went from we are the ninety-nine percent
To we are the chosen few
And while we’re arguing amongst ourselves
They’re trashing the place
Thinking they’ll just leave us here
And blast off into space

The folks who think they own the world
Are playing us for fools
They tilted the tables to win
Got us blaming each other
Instead of the way they rigged the rules
But there are more of us than there’ll ever be of them
Oh, we’re just gonna need a bigger tent

And how ‘bout conservative
Didn’t that used to mean careful and considered
Rather than racing to sell our inheritance
Off to the highest bidder?
Is there something wrong with public parks
Libraries and post offices?
Or caring more about people’s health
Than Big Pharma’s profits?
And is it right that the boss’ boss
Earns five hundred times
What they pay the poor souls they hire
To run the factory lines
But until we see the problem
Is this money-driven system
They’ll keep right on blaming
Its failures on its victims
We’re gonna need a bigger tent to fit us all in

I’ve seen the funky old places
Flattened out by the machine
All the houses with Black Lives Matter signs
And no black folks to be seen
Well, the whole thing’s just doing what it’s engineered to do
A great redistribution from the many to the few

The folks who think they own the world
Are playing us for fools
They tilted the tables to win
Got us blaming each other
Instead of the way they rigged the rules
But there are more of us than there’ll ever be of them
Oh, we’re just gonna need a bigger tent

‘Cause we belong (we belong)
We belong (we belong)
We belong on this precious little ball
We belong (we belong)
We belong (we belong)
We belong to each other after all

We belong (we belong)
We belong (we belong)
We belong on this precious little ball
We belong (we belong)
We belong (we belong)
We belong to each other after all
We belong to each other after all