Song Description

A terrifying narrative of war, reprisals, & the consequences of giving our darker impulses free reign in the heat of battle. This is the story of a massacre that took place in the Afshar district of Kabul, Afghanistan, in which some 900 civilians were mur

Lyrics

V1-
But first the silence of sleep, it starts at 6 in the morning,
You know the science of sounds of mortars dropped without warning,
It's like the sky was storming. Some people hit in their beds,
They didn't die so much as just evaporate instead.
Women trying to pick up pieces of their sons in aprons,
The wailing heard above the crack of guns & ultimatums.
Sayyaf's militia takes the Social Science Academy,
Found piles of their Pashtun brothers there & just went crazy.
& then they're fanning out into the neighborhood.
It's like the April riots: they're looting firewood,
Appliances, electrical wiring, roof beams.
They force the men at gunpoint to do the carrying.
They set on fire or break the shit that's too big to bring.
Suddenly life has no meaning & money is the king.
They put their dark shades on like General Dostum.
The wolves are at the door & feeling adventuresome.

VB1-
You made a deal with devils
& hoped you could control them;
Your better judgment failed &
The earth below you opened.
The road out here is rough
Due to construction
& paved with all those many
Perfect intentions.

C1-
When you let slip all those dogs of war, you should know
They don't come back to the chain so quickly.
When you let loose all that smallpox as the wind blows,
It don't return to the box that simply.
Inshallah, inshallah, inshallah.

V2-
Sayyaf's specialty is putting prisoners in metal containers
Then lighting fires as the screams go skyward,
& if you stand outside, the heat & smell will go straight to your head
& it gets harder to tell the villains from unarmed civilians.
So they drag 'em all out of houses & execute 'em.
Males as young as 6 & sometimes old men who rebuke them.
They squabble with one, & so they shank out his eyes,
They pull out the fingernails of others before they die.
Limbs are chopped off, heads are removed,
Checkpoints are started to kill others as they flee from the ruins.
Severed penises placed in mouths & burned corpses tied to trees
& young men sodomized with RPGs.
They leave some bodies in the street to let the stray dogs eat 'em
& any women who complain will get the special treatment:
Those pregnant ones they bayoneted to death,
One held a copy of the Holy Quran as she drew her last breath.

VB2-
They say the Prince of Lies
Builds up a little chapel;
It's right beside the tree
That has the little apple.
The road out here is rough
Due to construction
& paved with all those many
Perfect intentions.

C2-
When you let slip all those dogs of war, you should know
They don't come back to the chain so quickly.
When you let loose all that smallpox as the wind blows,
It don't return to the box that simply.
Inshallah, inshallah, inshallah.

B-
This happened on your watch.
Was there a hope of victory?
To me you stood for liberation
Not for banditry.
They got you stuck in this mud,
The discipline fell away,
Over a thousand are killed
Or disappeared in a day.
The paralactic event
When you surrendered control _____
You needed warlords to fight,
They had their own appetites.
You never told them no
For fear of sparking up dissension;
That's how this road is paved
With all your perfect intentions.

C2-
When you let slip all those dogs of war, you should know
They don't come back to the chain so quickly.
When you let loose all that smallpox as the wind blows,
It don't return to the box that simply.
Inshallah, inshallah, inshallah.