Artificial Art

My words are not written for me to make a profit    
Nor do I profess to be a spiritual prophet    
I just want a gallery to display what I create    
Just a place where no one's counting up the gate    
   
You have confused God with your Almighty Dollar    
And sold your soul for some artificial power    
Inside you're already equipped with all that you need    
I won't be bought 'cos I've closed my eyes to the allure of greed  
   
Fools will compare music of yesterday and today    
Technology can't make up for words without a way    
If a song's natural strength is not strong enough    
Why soften it by stuffing padding in the fluff?    
   
I hear a lot of slick production on the radio    
I really think the rock has gotten out of control    
I have seen the artists struggling in smoke filled bars    
And now in my visions I can see beyond the stars    
   
All I ever hear these days are sopped-up smoothie tunes  
Rising up the charts faster than full hot air balloons    
Even if you don't hear music from my point of view    
Stop polishing the rock, don't let it roll over you    
   
You're making lots of dollars but you're not making any sense  
Your smoothie tunes lack the passion that makes a song intense  
Believe the words you sing or the song is finished from the start  
Stop writing from your wallet, let it flow from in your heart    
   
Put some soul behind your roll and find the spirit that you lack  
Once it's sold you can't buy it back even with your endless stack  
In spite of all you've made, it's a fact you can't dismiss    
Art flows from within, not the corporate edifice    
   
Record company politics and artists just don't mix    
The ones who steal the money have one name, "666”    
Skip the beats of their broken record, inside is where it pays  
Despite the Record Biz, one song plays several ways    
   
I don't want to become anyone’s hero    
But I wouldn't be here now if mine added up to zero    
I don't want to dictate the style of music that you do    
I just want to hear something a little bit more true    
   
I could go on and on and on and I think I will anyway    
Until someday when it's you in your music I hear you play    
Can it really be so hard to feel and write down what you think  
Or is there something wrong, is your pen filled with phony ink?  
   
While it may be ok for you to live your life a lie    
Your fans worship you and I can't help but wonder why    
You have worked so hard to be what you wanted to be    
But to be yourself, you shouldn't have to try    
   
Time after time you sing and yet your song remains unsung  
Show us your true colors, expose your insides to the sun    
Songs are more than simply words for you to sing    
Will you ever understand that money isn't everything?    
   
I spin the radio dial and hear the commercial pioneers  
Every radio station is poison to my ears    
That isn't the kind of artist that I want to be    
All I really want is for my music to be me    
   
And so the con-artists continue to sell out their souls    
While mine's committed to making sure the rock still rolls  
And there is only one way to get back what they have lost  
But the barrier between greed and creation must be crossed