The High Line (Official) Lyrics

Yeah, what
Kinetics in ya headphones, 1, 2, 1, 2
Fading back to normal
Uh, yeah, fading back to normal
I'm stressed out but I'm fading back to normal
I'm stressed out but I'm fading

Close your eyes, picture the island of Manhattan
And imagine that a worldwide cataclysm has happened
Something like the evilest of military tyrants
Have devised a lethal Homo sapien-specific virus
The plants and animals survive but the humans vanish
The cities are abandoned with the buildings still standin'
And the vines start expandin' up the walls
And eventually the green crawls all the way up to the top floors
Now every city block would be covered in green
It would be the greatest jungle New Yorkers have ever seen

Forgive me for sounding pessimistic, hateful and vicious
But if we really left, do you think Mother Nature miss us?
'Cause Helios was wearin' the crown
It’s no coincidence an earthquake came by, tearin' him down

Yeah, it's deservin' a dedication
The dirt and the vegetation of Earth and its reclamation
The perfect investigation would begin with a sample
So bring the kids to the mantle and I will give an example
For when you go to New York City to the Lower West Side
Down on 34th Street is an abandoned train line
When it went out of service it was a matter of time
Before the tracks were all covered by the grass and the vines
They call it the High Line, like an elevated garden
A celebrated harvest painted by the greatest artist
And even if the frame's in a state of despair
Yo I don't care, think of the oxygen it gave to the air
So in the West Village you could take a deep breath
'Cause like Lady Liberty yo it's the only green left
So when I feel stressed and I need to buy time
Yo I write my lines high and hop on the High Line
And take it into to the future, think of it as a portal
Or a window of the Planet Earth fading back to normal
[Hook]:
I'm stressed out and I really need the green
'Cause when I'm stressed out yo I really need the green
So please give me the green, I really need the green
I really need the green, so please pass the green
And every night I dream, yo I'm dreamin' of the trees
'Cause in that green breeze, we'd be breathin' easily
So please give me the green, I really need the green
I really need the green, so please pass the green

Global warming, I remember the first time I heard the warning
Like every other American, I thought that shit was boring
But they would have to listen to a rapper spittin'
If a rapper spit an admonition attackin' the gas emissions
I have to admit it, man I was laughin' durin' The Happening
But half of this self-inflicted massacre's really happenin'
'Cause we're suicidal and this shit is absurd
In thirty years ya drinkin' water diminishes by a third
Word, talk about a little cotton in ya mouth
But I bet you got a faucet drip-droppin' in ya house
Bitch floppin' on the couch, dinner in the microwave
While the devil rides away to Asia on top of a tidal wave
Right away, we would pillage bleedin' Arabians
For cadmium radiation and depleted uranium
While in South America, we're attackin' the poorest nations
Factory forced invasion, the source of deforestation
Hopin' that it all stops
'Cause civilization is an indication that Mother Nature is gettin' bald spots
Can't you see? The woman is stressed out
'Cause there ain't enough trees to open her chest out
The doctor is in, finally findin' the best route
He told her to cut the lights and puff on the cess now
'Cause when I ache and I grieve, or I fall into trouble
I'm headin' straight for the trees like I was George of the Jungle
Because it's helping out with all the stress we go through
So we light blunts and we blow Os in the air
Factory smokestacks blowin' CO2
Need to be like us and blow more O in the air, yeah

[Hook]:
I'm stressed out and I really need the green
'Cause when I'm stressed out yo I really need the green
So please give me the green, I really need the green
I really need the green, so please pass the green
And every night I dream, yo I'm dreamin' of the trees
'Cause in that green breeze, we'd be breathin' easily
So please give me the green, I really need the green
I really need the green, so please pass the green

Written by Kinetics & One Love
Copyright © 2009

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Genius Annotation

This song, written in 2009, is a tribute to the High Line in New York City, an elevated train line that went out of service in the 1980s. Left unattended, the abandoned railway collected wild shrubs, grass and trees, now serving as the largest source of green in the West Village. “The High Line” was one of K&OL’s earliest environmentally conscious songs, expressing a pro-green, anti-deforestation message. The song’s conception was inspired by the book The World Without Us, in which author Alan Weisman ponders what would happen to Earth if humans suddenly vanished – ultimately suggesting that trees and plant life would one day retake the planet by covering cities and other manmade structures left behind. Weisman uses the High Line in Manhattan as an example of nature’s potential for reclamation of manmade structures.

Throughout the song, the words “trees” and “green” have an environmental context but also double as references to weed. The chorus’s repeated line, “I’m stressed out and I really need the green,” is spoken from the perspective of a planet under the stress of global warming and deforestation, but also from the individual who gets high to alleviate stress. In this context, the song’s title, “The High Line,” also has double meaning.

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