Why Can't We Live

Intro

Puget Sound breathing.

Rain don’t fall—it remembers.

Olympia, Tacoma, Seattle—

If we can fund war from this soil,

We can fund life.

Verse

Rain on the Sound, candles on MLK,

Another mural up, another soul passed away.

Wheelchairs full of prophets parked by the curb,

Brilliant minds trapped in unserved nerves.

They taught us ports, trade, jets in the sky,

Boeing dreams, but the body still die.

We build weapons precise as a surgeon’s hand,

But won’t fund the surgeon to heal the land.

Pre-chorus

Aging ain’t destiny, it’s deferred repair,

Telomeres fraying while budgets go elsewhere.

UW labs know cells can renew—

So I’m asking out loud what we scared to do.

Chorus

Why can’t we live—live forever right now?

Turn missiles to medicine—tell me how.

No more funerals off South 38th ground,

If we grow to our prime and never break down.

Why can’t we heal—heal every disease?

Blind eyes open, deaf folks hear the streets.

I’m asking teachers, doctors, lawmakers too—

Washington State, why can’t we choose?

Verse

Nanotech angels in the bloodstream run,

Fix a spine, spark nerves, let the paralyzed run.

Genetics like code—we finally fluent,

Rewrite trauma written into the human.

Twenty-five forever, strength locked in place,

No arthritis stealing elders’ grace.

Mount Rainier watch us decide our fate—

Longevity now, not heaven delayed.

Pre-chorus

We tax the poor to clean up messes of war,

But won’t tax greed to end sickness for sure.

Call death “natural” to dodge the bill—

But nature bends when the will get real.

Chorus

Why can’t we live—live forever right now?

No more hospice halls, no lowering down.

If sickness is solved and aging bows,

Then heaven ain’t later—it’s Tacoma now.

Why can’t we heal—heal every disease?

Cancer erased, everybody breathe.

Olympia hear me, sign it through—

Washington State, why can’t we choose?

Bridge

Choir: Choose life!

Lead: We choosing life.

Choir: Choose life!

Lead: We choosing now.

Lead (rap-sung):

If death was a policy dressed as fate,

Then life a policy we legislate.

Turn defense contracts into clinic sheets,

UW Medicine on every street.

Immortality ain’t ego—it’s duty,

Live long enough to repair what we ruined.

Chorus

Why can’t we live—live forever right now?

No more goodbye, no lowering down.

From Yakima fields to the Sound’s deep mouth,

We end disease here, we decide it now.

Why can’t we heal—heal every disease?

From cradle to elder, everybody free.

Washington State on bended knee—

Why can’t we live eternally?

Outro

We decided weapons.

We can decide life.