I was listening to the System of a Down Album Toxicity again and the song Deer Dance had this lyric in it, and I had to share.
You can’t be neutral right now, you have to fight back however you can.
Give the album a listen if you haven’t, it’s a banger and is still relevent to this day 24 years after it’s release.
Image description: Pictured is Serj Tankian known as part of the band ‘System of a Down’, singing into a microphone and the text “You can’t afford to be neutral on a moving train”
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Reminds me of the Rush song with the lyric: “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice"
For those curious it’s the song Freewill by Rush
Another banger
I love this album but never particularly liked that quote or the supposed meaning behind.
If you’re on the train you’re either for it or against it. No one on the train is neutral. They either boarded willingly or were boarded against their will. I don’t think anyone just finds themselves on the train.
It’s true, of course, that being neutral is accepting the status quo, and that neutrality helps the oppressor and not the oppressed, but I don’t think this quote really conveys that.
It’s a metaphor, doesn’t need to make perfect sense. Our train is the world we live in, you’re on it no matter what you do.
You can’t afford to be neutral on a moving generation ship
Snowpiercer.
I always thought this line was meant sarcastically. Reflecting the kind of rhetoric that George W Bush pushed at the time; ‘either you’re with us or you’re against us’
The context for the song was Rage Against the Machines protest concert across from the DNC Convention where several people were shot with rubber bullets. I don’t think the line is sarcastic, it’s entirely a protest song against police and State brutality. Probably also saying that peaceful (and not disruptive) protest is just a “deer dance” against violent oppression.
A rush of words. Pleading to disperse. Upon your naked walls, alive. A political call. The fall guy accord. We can’t afford to be neutral on a moving train
Beyond the Staples Center you can see America. With its tired poor avenging disgrace. Peaceful loving youth against the brutality. Of plastic existence.
A deer dance, invitation to peace. War staring you in the face, dressed in black
Hell yeah it’s a protest song
The album is full of banger politically driven songs, I highly recommend it
I can decouple a wagon or two for a while though.
![Neutral on a moving [Rule]](https://i.imgflip.com/9mjz5v.jpg){kind=link}