Beautiful Lasers (2 Ways)

## Song by Lupe Fiasco featuring MDMA

"**Beautiful Lasers (2 Ways)**" is song by Lupe Fiasco, released as the seventh track off his third studio album, *Lasers* (2011). It features guest vocals from MDMA.

Fiasco informed *Chicago Tribune*, "It's about me contemplating suicide, coming to grips with it. I was reading about Hunter S. Thompson and why he committed suicide, the Kurt Cobains, people in the same business as I am who actually carried it out. You have the corporation in your ear and you're living a public life, but you also have a private life and are thinking I don't want to be here. And it also refers to social suicide, where I would just leave, just not do music anymore. I came out of it literally not (caring about any of it). It was a constant set of demands: If you don't do this interview, you won't get coverage in this magazine. If you don't do this song, this album isn't happening. Saying that I didn't care became my therapy, my recovery. And I felt like I needed to document it. I felt like if I'm going through that, and I'm a normal person, I felt like other people must be contemplating this too because of similar pressures to do things they felt were wrong or against their better judgment. This is a very personal album about things playing out in a public space. My lack of enthusiasm for doing this event, or appearing on this TV network, or working with this person—I didn't see it right away, but it was destroying me. I was going through this classic breakdown. It came out in "Beautiful Lasers." It's a very powerful, energetic song, and me screaming in it was therapy."

## Credits and personnel

* Claudio Cueni – recording
* Dan Manzoor – guitar, bass
* David "King David" Manzoor – writer, producer, keyboards
* Jason "MDMA" Boyd – vocals
* Joe Peluso – mixing
* Trevor Astey – additional engineering
* Wasalu "Lupe Fiasco" Jaco – vocals, writer

## Lyrics

**Lyrics**
[Chorus: MDMA]

There's only two ways out

Of here

You're way too late, you'll be trapped here

Forever

There's only two ways out

Of here

One's through the door

The other's through me

[Verse 1: Lupe Fiasco]

Ugh, sometimes, living in a world like this

It's pretty hard not to go insane

Not pretty if you don't comply

Pretty easy if you don't complain

Stand there like you don't feel pain

No tears in the face of defeat

Pretend 'til the end that you don't fear change

Don't admit that your faith is weak

Don't say that you feel like dying

Life's hard, and it feels like diamonds

Your home's just far too gone

Much too late to even feel like trying

Can't understand what I'm saying?

Can't figure out what I'm implying?

If you feel you don't wanna be alive

You feel just how I am

I'm on the dark side

And you can't come find him

How, when it's light all around you?

Yeah, but it's dark all inside him

No winners when it's me against me

One of us just ain't gonna survive

My heart been broke for a while

Your's been the one keepin' me alive

[Chorus: MDMA]

There's only two ways out

Of here

You're way too late, you'll be trapped here

Forever

There's only two ways out

Of here

One's through the door

The other's through me

[Verse 2: Lupe Fiasco]

This world is such a fucked up place

My mind's such a fucked up shape

Everything down here sucks

Maybe what's up there is great

We all gotta go one day

I just wanna cut to the chase

I wanna stop these nightmares

I just wanna touch your face

All you see is all my feats

All I see is all my flaws

All I hear is all my demons

Even through your applause

All you see is all my flights

Well, all I see is all my falls

All you see is all my rights

All I see is all my wrongs

Door keep telling me to fight

Gun on my table telling me to come on

Telling me to to put him inside my hand

Then put it up right next to my dome

Door keep telling me to find a reason

Anything to keep me from squeezing

Simplest things, yeah, you really like summer

You really like music, you really like reading

Love! I can't win if it's me against me

One of us ain't gonna survive

And my heart been broke for a while

Yours been the one keepin' me alive

Yours been the one keepin' me alive

Yours been the one keepin' me alive

[Chorus: MDMA]

There's only two ways out

Of here

You're way too late, you'll be trapped here

Forever

There's only two ways out

Of here

One's through the door

The other's through me

## References

1. ↑ "Lupe Fiasco discusses the making of 'L.A.S.E.R.S.': 'It was destroying me'". *Chicago Tribune*. March 1, 2011. Archive from the original on March 5, 2011.