Europe Is Lost Kae Tempest

[Intro]
In the basement flat, by the garages
Where the people dump their mattresses
Esther's in her kitchen, making sandwiches
The slats on her blinds are all wonky and skewed
You can see her from the street before she moves out of view
To kick her boots off tired feet
She wipes her forehead with her wrist
She's just back from a double shift
Esther's a carer, doing nights
Behind her, on the kitchen wall
Is a black and white picture of swallows in flight
Her eyes are sore, her muscles ache
She cracks a beer and swigs it
She holds it to her thirsty lips
And necks it till it's finished
It's 04:18 AM again
Her brain is full from all she's done that day
She knows that she won't sleep a wink
Before the Sun is on its way
She's worried 'bout the world tonight
She's worried all the time
She don't know how she's supposed
To put it from her mind

[Verse 1]
Europe is lost, America lost, London lost
Still we are clamouring victory
All that is meaningless rules
We have learned nothing from history
The people are dead in their lifetimes
Dazed in the shine of the streets
But look how the traffic's still moving
System’s too slick to stop working
Business is good, and there’s bands every night in the pubs
And there’s two for one drinks in the clubs
And we scrubbed up well
Washed off the work and the stress
And now all we want’s some excess
Better yet; a night to remember that we’ll soon forget
All of the blood that was bled for these cities to grow
All of the bodies that fell
The roots that were dug from the earth
So these games could be played
I see it tonight in the stains on my hands
The buildings are screaming
I can't ask for help though, nobody knows me
Hostile, worried, lonely
We move in our packs and these are the rights we were born to
Working and working so we can be all that we want
Then dancing the drudgery off
But even the drugs have got boring
Well, sex is still good when you get it