Wage Wars Get Rich Die Handsome
This song has an official lyric video.
Lyrics
Floor the pedal at the green light
Watch the traffic all drift right
Barrel forward unimpeded
Switch lanes as needed
Be flexible^^^
Be unreplaceable*
In a world of heavy footprints, be untraceable**
Wage wars get rich die handsome
Wage wars get rich die handsome
Wage wars get rich die handsome
Live once you get to pay twice
Keep your nose clean
Keep your wheels nice
Open highway on the horizon
Queen of Queens, anima rising***/&
Stay independent^^
Make adjustments as needed
It's^ losers&& all the way down
You stay undefeated, stay undefeated
Wage wars get rich die handsome
Wage wars get rich die handsome
Wage wars get rich die handsome
Wage wars! Get rich! Die handsome!
Wage wars! Get rich! Die handsome!
Wage wars! Get rich! Die handsome! Die! handsome!
Footnotes
* Variant: "untraceable" (2022-09-20)
** Variant: "In a world of easy switch-outs, be unreplaceable" (2022-09-20), "stay unreplaceable" (2023-07-04)
*** Variant: Line starts with "there goes my" (2022-09-20)
^ Variant: "I just see" (2022-09-20)
^^ "stay respectable" (2022-08-19), "be invisible" (2022-09-08), "stay flexible" (2022-09-11)
^^^ "respectable" (2022-08-28, 2022-09-11, 2023-06-29, 2023-07-04, 2023-07-07)
& reference to Joni Mitchell, Don't Interrupt the Sorrow
&& "bodies" for "losers" (2023-07-05)
Banter
- JD: I was born ready! Matt ain't ready. That's how you know he's a better musician than me, he knows when he's not ready. Well. That and his playing.
Matt: Is it in F?
JD: No! it's in F!
Peter: Yeah, but it doesn't start in F. It starts with the riff. That you wrote.
JD: This is the best thing that has ever happened to me in my life. Matt asked what key the song is, and I said, well, no the reason John's holding a G# is that it starts with a riff before going to the key. And Peter says, it's the riff, that you wrote. Friends, this is a song that says very simply, very simply indeed, wage wars, get rich, die handsome. ( - 2022-08-19 Brooklyn Arts Center)
- I do not generally dispense life advice. People who ask me for it, I say, you know, when I was 17 I thought it was a good idea to get into heroin. What should I do with my life, John? I don't know! I've demonstrated that I don't know, but this is my one sort of lifestyle guru song. Take this and go forward. Wage wars. [cheering] Get rich. [even more cheering] Die handsome. [crowd goes bananas] (2022-08-28 The Broadberry)
- Friends, I've got one song left for you, and I don't generally give out advice. But this song does give out advice. Bad advice. [cheering, hell yeahs] And that's everybody's favorite type of advice. I love my guitar. And I love you. Thanks for coming. (2022-09-20 Saturn)
- I wish to correct my previous statement. It's not just that the one song is personal life advice. It's that all songs are personal life advice. I take no personal responsibility if someone follows that advice. Again, I maintain that it is advice. I have kind of a magical waiver vision. The waiver is implicit when you fall under my gaze. This is a song from 1994, it's called 'Your waiver is implicit when you fall under my gaze'. (2023-06-29 Mercury Ballroom)
- JD: Friends, I don't normally do life advice. People ask me, John, how should I live? All the time. The thing is, it's true, though. They don't put it that way, but that's what they mean.
Peter: John, how should I live?
JD: Well, Peter, you're asking a guy who thought it was really cool to shoot a lot of heroin when he was 17.
Peter: Mmkay.
JD: So, you gotta take, consider the people--
Peter: So what - start with that?
JD: NO!!! I spent like, two months --
Peter: I wanna be successful like you.
JD: No!! Most of my friends...
Peter: [laughing audibly off mic]
JD: Thing is, every once in a while you roll a 7. But the house knows, most of the time you're gonna crap out. So. It's true. People would say to me, hey, John, how then shall I live? And I'll say, that's a very eloquently phrased question, appreciate that, don't ask me, I obviously don't know anything at all about how to live. Just how to write songs. But this, every once in awhile, you get the urge, as a folk singer, to be didactic. To say, lemme write something that tells people what they ought to do with their lives. How to behave. How to conduct themselves in this world. How to best exemplify a path of spiritual righteousness and progress. Wage wars. [website curator audibly screeches] Get rich. Die handsome. (2023-07-02 SPACE)
- I generally avoid giving life advice. Except for this song. (2023-07-04 Codfish Hollow Barnstormers)
- People, I mean this song every time I sing it to anybody. But I should like to forge and establish the Iowa Connection with this song, so far as I would like everybody else to feel inspired to follow its instruction, but only for the citizens of Iowa to carry these instructions out. Realize them in the world. To wage wars. To get rich. To die handsome. (2023-07-05 Wooly's )
- You know we had babies? Peter had babies, Matt had babies, I had some babies. But we didn't have any lullabies to sing. I'd sing Grateful Dead tunes. It's time to get into some lullabies for babies, the last one we're going to sing, just in case. Maybe you don't have babies yet but you find some you need to sing a lullaby to. Just walk right up to em in the supermarket. This is a lullaby. For all the babies. (2023-07-10 The Lyric)
Commentary
- When I write an album that revolves around a theme, it usually takes two or three songs before I notice what's going on. There's always one song that becomes the ‘might as well dive all the way in’ song and on Bleed Out that song was 'Wage Wars Get Rich Die Handsome,' written while watching a French action movie way past my normal bedtime. (JD, Facebook post, 2022-07-11)
- When you are writing about a desire to make everybody pay for something that's causing you pain, you're writing about something universal anyway. But especially if everybody's under a lot of pressure, then everybody's feeling that. The band was super into that one. (JD, Album commentary on Apple Music)
Live Performances
Footnotes
The website curator recommends 2023-06-29 for excellent guitar work by Matt at a screaming hot pace, and 2023-07-02 for being the show where she transcended time and space after going to back to back shows and also working and moving and such.