Ocean View - One Day As A Lion

One Day As A Lion is the blending music styles of major activist Zach de la Rocha and Mars Volta Drummer Jon Theodore. The band was named after a picture by Chicano photographer George Rodriguez. In the picture was taken of an art piece that was found on a wall in Boyle Heights in the 1970s. it reads "it's better to live one day as a lion then a thousand years as a lamb." We spoke about this in class and it's something to take a moment to think about. Is passive resistance better than violent resistance? below are the lyrics to one of their songs Ocean View.

Blood done been running down streets flood with beats

Pepper spray over cracked concrete

So vicious make a rich mans neck split

Underworld bout to wreck shit bet this

Banks closed stomachs churning

Lines and rows cops blastin out church windows

They heard word of two on a terror list

Hid in the pews just two city terrace kids

One held a piece just for peace of mind

The other was spittin poems blowin minds

On the picket line

Barricades lay cross made with bumpers and burning tires

And you could smell the exhaust

And you could hear the kids screaming don't

Play us, too close

You can have the mic or the heater but you can't hold both

And they were both...

And they were both...

Ocean of tears rise, rise a flame to tear them down

Ocean of past crimes now fill our hearts to tear them down

The water main's cut off panic hit the manor of the

Mayor who's soft

Word hit the streets that the cops got off

They shook to rhythm of heaters that burned

Like claps of thunder

You turn to look at vengeance returned that shatter control

After the whole shock of the news that a bomb hit the

Bridge at broadway

Gridlock full stop every exit way from Chavez to main

Downtown was the same

Every corner a flame with lines of people stripped of they clothes

Freeze hold up your ID's their houses burned as they watched

The colonel looked at his clock

And they were all...

And they were all...

Oceans of tears rise, rise a flame to tear them down

Ocean of past crimes now fill our hearts to tear them down