Streets on Fire

## Song by Lupe Fiasco featuring Matthew Santos

"**Streets on Fire**" is a song by Lupe Fiasco featuring Matthew Santos. It was released as the eleventh track from Fiasco's second studio album, *Lupe Fiasco's The Cool* (2007). It is part of his concept of the characters The Cool, The Streets, and The Game, describing an apocalyptic world where "The Streets" represents temptation for corruption.

The track addresses a metaphorical incurable disease which causes people to blame one another, in turn highlighting societal issues like social class divide, corrupt government, the allure of criminal activity, and conformity for what is "cool," even if false or destructive.

## Background

Fiasco told *Entertainment Weekly*, "At the beginning of the song, Matthew Santos lists all these tragedies, and then it says, 'She's out there smiling.' It comes from *1984*, the book, where there was so much double-talk and double-think in the first few chapters. That's my favorite book. I tried to put that in a record. So it's like, 'Believe / So say the neon signs by the loudspeakers / Repeating that everything is fine.' You know? 'A subtle silence / To demolish the troubled conscience / Of a populace with no knowledge / And every freedom denied.' It comes directly influenced by *1984*—using it as a vehicle to introduce one of the characters very abstractly, very subtly."

## Lyrics

**Lyrics**
[Intro: Matthew Santos, *Lupe Fiasco*]

*Tonight, tonight, tonight*

The stars are aligned, and the planets colliding

The plan is arriving, and she's out there smiling

The fear is upon us, the skies tried to warn us

The parents are goners, no children to mourn us

It's driving me crazy, this war is my lady

We've lost all our babies, and God is amazing

The tick of the timer, the slip of the rhymer

The pimp and the riser

Your cross, there you'll find her

Hey, hey

[Chorus: Matthew Santos]

Death is on the tip of her tongue and

Danger's at the tip of her fingers

Streets are on fire tonight

Death is on the tip of her tongue and

Danger's at the tip of her fingers

Streets are on fire tonight

[Verse 1: Lupe Fiasco]

Disease, the virus is spreading in all directions

No safe zone no cure and no protection

No symptoms define the signs of an infection

No vaccines, remedies, and no corrections

Quarantine the dreams and seal off the connections

Don't let them in, not a friend, not a reflection

Everybody's got it and want you to have it next and

Don't accept them if you want to stay as an exception

No pill can heal the ill of this

Sickness, some are still in doubt of its existence

Some call it forgiveness and some call it the vengeance

Some say it's an exit and some say it's an entrance

The poor say the rich have the cure

The rich say the poor are the source

Revolutionaries say it's psychological war

Invented by the press, just to have something to report

Some say the first case came from a maternity ward

Some say a morgue, some say the skies, some say the floors

Whores say the nuns, nuns say the whores

And everybody is sure

The scientist say it only affects the mind

The little boy said it only affects the girls

The preacher man said it's going to kill off the soul

A bum said it's gonna kill the whole wide world

[Chorus: Matthew Santos]

Death is on the tip of her tongue and

Danger's at the tip of her fingers

Streets are on fire tonight

Death is on the tip of her tongue and

Danger's at the tip of her fingers

Streets are on fire tonight

[Verse 2: Lupe Fiasco]

"Believe!", so say the neon signs by the

Loudspeakers repeating that everything is fine;

A subtle solace to demolish the troubled conscience

Of a populace with no knowledge and every freedom denied

Every dream is designed and broadcasted

From the masters to the masses

From the antennas on the top of the shrines

Refine the receiver and plant it

During the panic and short it, it reports back

Everything in your mind, everything is lying

Everything is dying, everything is a rule

Everything is a crime, everything was here then

Everything rewind the new

Weather burned the feathers off everything flying

(And she likes it, and she loves it)

The sadness, the madness, the bad shit

The lavish, the fastest, the clashes, the ashes to ashes

Everything intertwined

My femme fatale my darling fraudulent angel

Once caught her changing the batteries in her halo

Receipt for her wings and everything that she paid for

And the address to the factory where they made those

Scientist said she's all inside my mind

The little boy said "What happened to all the girls?"

The preacher man said "She's going to kill off your soul."

The dope boy said "It's the whole wide world."

[Chorus: Matthew Santos]

Death is on the tip of her tongue and

Danger's at the tip of her fingers

Streets are on fire tonight

Death is on the tip of her tongue and

Danger's at the tip of her fingers

Streets are on fire tonight

## References

1. ↑ Richards, Pete (August 6, 2008). "Interview: Lupe Fiasco On The Hip-Hop Industry, Jay-Z, Chicago, And His Karate Skills". *MethodShop*.
2. ↑ Vozick-Levinson, Simon (November 16, 2007). "Lupe Fiasco deciphers his upcoming concept CD". *Entertainment Weekly*.