PJ Harvey - The Hope Six Demolition Project Album Lyrics

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The Community Of Hope

Here's the Hope Six Demolition Project
Switching down the Benning Road
The well-known "pathway of death"
At least that's what I'm told
And here's the one sit-down restaurant
In Ward Seven, nice
OK, now this is just drug town, just zombies
But that's just life

In the Community of Hope
The Community of Hope
The Community of Hope
The Community of Hope, hope, hope, hope

Here's the highway pathway of death and destruction
South Capitol is its name
And the school that looks like shit-hole
Does that look like a nice place?
Here's the old mental institution
And the Homeland Security Base
And here's God's Deliverance Centre
A deli called M.L.K

And The Community of Hope
The Community of Hope
The Community of Hope
The Community of Hope, hope, hope, hope

They're gonna put a Walmart here
They're gonna put a Walmart here
They're gonna put a Walmart here...

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The Ministry Of Defence

This is the Ministry
Of Defence
Stairs and walls are
all that's left

Mortar holes let
through the air
Kids do the same thing
everywhere

They've sprayed graffiti
In arabic
And balanced sticks
In human shit

This is the ministry
of remains
Fizzy drinks cans
and magazines

Broken glass
A white jawbone
Syringes, razors
A plastic spoon

Human hair
A kitchen knief
And a ghost of a girl
Who runs and hides
Scratched in the wall in
Biro pen
This is how the
world will end

There's the bus depot
To the right
Levelled like
A building site

Those are the children's
cries from the dark
These are the words
written under the arch
Scratched in the wall
in biro pen
This is how the
world will end.

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A Line In The Sand

How to stop the murdering?
By now we should have learned
If we don't then we're a sham
Bad overwhelms the good
Bad overwhelms the good

Ooh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

What I've seen
Yes, it's changed how
I see humankind
I used to think progress was made
We could get something right
We could get something right

Enough is enough
A line in the sand
Seven or eight thousand people
Killed by hand
They stepped off the edge
They did not step back
If we have not learnt
By now
Then we're a sham

When we first got to the camp
Our supplies were not enough
I saw a displaced family
Eating a cold horse's hoof
Oh a cold horse's hoof

Ooh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

We sent up tents
Brought in water
Air drops were dispersed
I saw people kill each other
Just to get there first
Oh just to get there first

Enough is enough
A line in the sand
Seven or eight thousand people
Killed by hand
They stepped off the edge
They did not step back
If we have not learnt
By now
Then we're a sham

What we did?
Why we did?
I make no excuse
We got things wrong
But I believe
We also did some good

What we did?
Why we did?
I make no excuse
I believe we have a future
To do something good

Ooh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

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Chain Of Keys

Fifteen keys hang on
Fifteen keys hang on a chain
The chain is joint
The chain is joint and forms a ring
The ring is in
The ring is in a woman's hand
She's walking on
She's walking on the dusty ground

The dusty ground's a dead-end track
The neighbours won't be coming back
Fifteen gardens overgrown
Fifteen houses falling down

The woman's old
The woman's old and dressed in black
She keeps her hands
She keeps her hands behind her back
Imagine what
Imagine what her eyes have seen
We ask but she
We ask but she won't let us in

A key so simple and so small
How can it mean no chance at all?
A key, a promise, or a wish
How can it mean such hopelessness

"A circle is broken", she says
"A circle is broken", she says

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River Anacostia

Oh my Anacostia
Do not sigh, do not weep
Beneath the overpass
Your Savior's waiting patiently

Walking on the water
Flowing with the poisons
From the naval yards
He's talking to the fallen reeds

Saying "What will become of us?"
What will become of us?
Oh...

Wade in the water
God's gonna trouble the water

A small red sun makes way for night
Trails away like a tail light
Is that Jesus on the water
Talking to the fallen trees?

Saying "What will become of us?"
What will become of us?
Oh...

Wade in the water, God's gonna trouble the water
Wade in the water, God's gonna trouble the water
Wade in the water, God's gonna trouble the water

What will become if God's gonna trouble waters?
What will become if God's gonna trouble waters?
What will become if God's gonna trouble waters?
Wade in the water, God's gonna trouble the water
Wade in the water, God's gonna trouble the water
Wade in the water, God's gonna trouble the water

Wade in the water
God's gonna trouble the water

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Near The Memorials To Vietnam And Lincoln

All near the memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln
All near the memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln
All near the memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln
All near the memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln

At the refreshments stand
A boy throws out his hands
As if to feed the starlings
But really he throws nothing
It's just to watch them jump
See the people coming
They're moving over the grass
To squeeze in two plastic chairs

All near the memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln
All near the memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln
All near the memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln
All near the memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln

Three notes, a bugle call
A black man in overalls
Arrives to empty the trash
Hauls it to a metal hatch
A doorway opens up
To the underworld
The boy throws empty hands
And the starlings jump

All near the memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln
All near the memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln
All near the memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln
All near the memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln

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The Orange Monkey

A restlessness took hold my brain
And questions I could not hold back
An orange monkey on a chain
On a bleak uneven track

Told me that to understand
You must travel back time
I took a plane to a foreign land
And said, "I'll write down what I find"

Beneath a mountain's jagged shelves
Cloaked with snow and shadows sheer
Plates tipped up upon themselves
The pain of fifty million years

And mules and goats were running wild
A happy chaos carried on
And old men and the young boys smiled
And worked until the day was gone

The packs of sandy-coloured dogs
Walked streets that looked like building sites
But piles of rocks and dust and smog
Could not block out a different light

When I returned I ran to meet
The monkey, but his face had changed
He stood before me on two feet
The track was now a motorway

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Medicinals

I was walking through the National Mall
Thinking about medicinals, how they used to grow there

When the ground was a marshland
Undisturbed by human hands, and I heard their voices:

Sumac said "We're always here"
Witch Hazel - "We're always here"
Sassafras - "We're always here"
Bluestem grasses always here

I looked about, and what I see?
Medicinals grow around me, rising from the gravel
Sumac and the Witch Hazel
Come to soothe our primal sores, come to soothe our troubles

Sumac said "We're always here"
Witch Hazel - "We're always here"
Sassafras - "We're always here"
Bluestem grass is always here

But do you see that woman, sitting in the wheelchair?
With her Redskins cap on backwards
What's that she's singing?
As from inside a paper wrapper
She sips from a bottle
A new painkiller
For the native people

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The Ministry Of Social Affairs

See them sitting, in the rain
As the sky is darkening
Three lines of traffic are edging past
The ministry of social affairs
At a junction on the ground
An amputee and a pregnant hound
Sit by the young men with withered arms
As if death had already passed

Through every alleyway, and left
A million beggars silhouettes
Near where the money changers sit
By their locked glass cabinets
What has happened, let go and ask
The ministry of social affairs
Near where the money changers sit
By their locked glass cabinets

That's what they want, oh yeah
Money, honey
That's what they want, oh yeah
Money, honey
That's what they want, oh yeah
Money, honey
That's what they want, oh yeah
Money, honey
That's what they want, oh yeah
Money, honey
That's what they want, oh yeah
Money, honey

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The Wheel

A revolving wheel of metal chairs
Hung on chains, squealing
Four little children flying out
A blind man sings in Arabic

Hey little children don't disappear
(I heard it was 28,000)
Lost upon a revolving wheel
(I heard it was 28,000)

Now you see them, now you don't
Children vanish 'hind vehicle
Now you see them, now you don't
Faces, limbs, a bouncing skull

Hey little children don't disappear
(I heard it was 28,000)
All that's left after a year
(I heard it was 28,000)
A faded face, the trace of an ear
(I heard it was 28,000)

A tableau of the missing
Tied to the government building
8,000 sun-bleached photographs
Faded with the roses

Hey little children don't disappear
(I heard it was 28,000)
Lost upon a revolving wheel
(I heard it was 28,000)
All that's left after a year
(I heard it was 28,000)
A faded face, the trace of an ear
(I heard it was 28,000)

And watch them fade out
And watch them fade out
And watch them fade out...

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Dollar, Dollar

The boy stares through the glass
He's saying dollar dollar
Three lines of traffic past
We're trapped inside our car

His voice says dollar dollar
I turn to you to ask
For something we could offer
Three lines of traffic past
We pull away so fast

All my words get swallowed
In the rear view glass
A face pock-marked and hollow
He's saying dollar dollar

I can't look through or past
A face saying dollar dollar
A face pock-marked and hollow
Staring from the glass