Unto Caesar Lyrics
It's already history
Random or intelligent
The mute march into victory
Innocent or innocent enough to say
"I did what I did, I did what I did only"
Render unto Caesar
Scrawled and all illegible
You kept yourself hidden well
Sprawling and inflexible
The world asked you for nothing else
So and forward, lifelong in the gentle breeze
Moral as a leaf, to fall and to decease, you
Render unto Caesar
("When should we bust into harmony?")
Where the grayscale conjurers (flip it)
Where the lifelike perjurers (write it)
Where the vested spectators (watch it)
Where the weapon chancellor (gun it)
Where the twilight mandolin (play it)
Where the high custodian (mop it)
Where the panic violent (panic)
Where the crabby handmaiden is (scrub it)
Down the line, dead the martyrs' morbid poetry
("What are we singing?")
("Uh, that doesn't make any sense what you just said. Hey, can you—")
Down the rampart, the vandals given to defeat
And down the landscape
The lineman plastered for a, for a, for a week
Render unto Caesar
Render unto Caesar
About
“Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Ἀπόδοτε οὖν τὰ Καίσαρος Καίσαρι καὶ τὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ τῷ Θεῷ Matthew 22:21).
We included the Greek for Dave Longstreth, who has said this album is in some ways about bad translation. During the writing he read the Bible for fun. He was apparently interested in the recursive failures of Sixties activism in light of the Occupy encampment at the time. It fits with the distributive economics liberation theology angle of the verse. The verse also has an anti-authoritarian message, and parallels the band’s countercultural refusal to participate in “mindie” (mainstream indie) theatrics. They position themselves as artists who pursue higher truth and more serious art.
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
- 2.About to Die
- 10.The Socialites
- 11.Unto Caesar
- 14.Buckle Up