I'm picking up the pieces
I'm trying out adhesives
I'm trying to fix a place that feels broken

All my words they fail me
My voices don't avail me
I'm trying to say the hope that's unspoken

Is this the world you want?
Is this the world you want?
You're making it
Everyday you're alive

Is this the world you want?
Is this the world you want?
You're making it

The world feels so malicious
With all our hits and misses
Feels like we're in the business of rust

It's when I stop to listen
All the moments I've been missing
I finally hear a voice I can trust

Everyday you're alive
You change the world
Everyday you're alive
Honey, you change the world
You change my world

You start to look like what you believe
We float through time like a stream
But the waters of time
Are made up by you and I
If you change the world for you, you change it for me

What you say is your religion
How you say it's your religion
Who you love is your religion
How you love is your religion
All your science your religion
All your hatred your religion
All your wars are your religion
Every breath is your religion

Your religion
(the laughter of children)




Behind the Song:
"Men reveal themselves in deeds and acts."
-Aristotle

As we were dreaming up the concept of Fading West, we were hoping that the movie and the record would have the same emotional arc. This ended up happening in a really natural way as the scenery and the events that happened onscreen directly influenced the songs that we wrote and recorded. Maybe the best example of that congruence would be in the song, "The World You Want." I'm really proud of how "The World You Want" captured the sentiment of hope and despair all in the context of responsibility in the film and on the record.

During our stay in South Africa, I was struck by the sharp contrasts that comprise our experience on the planet. Areas of poverty and wealth, faces of hope and despair, stories of racial tension and reconciliation- this is the story of humanity. Beautiful at times, horrifying at times, our hands are capable of such good and evil. I wanted a song that captured the darkness and the light of a life filled with so many conflicting emotions. To have a song that starts and ends with the joy and laugher of children felt fitting. For me, it helps to bring light into the dark room of human behavior.

Is this the world you want?
Is this the world you want?
You're making it
Everyday you're alive

It's a dark, self-indicting song to sing, because I'm guilty as well. I'm culpable in the state of the world. Who can claim innocence? Who can honestly say, "I have, in no way, lived my life at the expense of those around me." Religion is an odd word to our ears. Words like religion, faith, and spirituality are often relegated to the irrelevant, obscurity of our childhood fantasies. Like the monster under the bed, we outgrow them and move on. And agnostic naturalism becomes the cold, sterile replacement. How could religion have anything to do with our post-modern, post-Christian world?

When Greg Graffin, Bad Religion's frontman, calls naturalism his religion, I think he's right. Your religion might not include transcendent elements, it might not include a long history of tradition. Show me your pocketbook and I will show you your religion. Show me your Google search history and I will show you your religion. You can talk all you want about your beliefs, but without action your fancy words about faith mean very little. Religion is best shown in the way we spend our time here on the planet. What you say you believe is not your religion, your religion is the way you treat the orphans and the widows here on the planet.
-- Jon Foreman