How Much Is Enough?

Song details

Bad Religion original
Yes
First released
1988
First release
Suffer (album)
Songwriter
Brett Gurewitz

Lyrics

How Much Is Enough?

Tell me can the hateful chain be broken? Production and consumption define our hollow lives. Avarice has led us 'cross the ocean, Toward a land that's better, much more bountiful and wide. So when will mankind finally come to realize His surfeit has become his demise? How much is enough to kill yourself? That quantity is known today, as we blow ourselves away. Tell me is there anything so sure? Rapacity, tenacity, capacity for more! Like a dog that feeds until he suffers, Infirmity of man is brought on by his selfish cure. When will mankind finally come to realize His surfeit has become his demise? How much is enough to kill yourself? That quantity is known today, as we blow ourselves away.

Versions & recordings

Grouped by recording

6

First released on Suffer · 1988

Appears on

924 Gilman St FM BroadcastBootleg · 2020View 2 versions →Live 94 RadioBootleg · 1995View 1 version →Live '93Bootleg · 1993View 2 versions →Last Exit For The LostBootleg · 1993View 2 versions →

Song statistics

Archive coverage at a glance

83release versions
#46

46th most featured song

172documented shows
#54

54th most played song

Live through the years

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Song Interpretations

What do you think this song is about? Share your interpretation and explain your reasoning.

4

legacy memberJan 24, 2018

I cannot and will not determine what this song means to you. I will, however, say what I think to what it alludes. Mankind is aware of its fragility relative to the animal kingdom. We outwit our competition and are able to create many clones who want the same. Our expansion led us across the ocean to rinse and repeat creating a spread of imbalanced existence. We as humans imbalance the natural state and thusly remo…

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I cannot and will not determine what this song means to you. I will, however, say what I think to what it alludes.

Mankind is aware of its fragility relative to the animal kingdom. We outwit our competition and are able to create many clones who want the same. Our expansion led us across the ocean to rinse and repeat creating a spread of imbalanced existence. We as humans imbalance the natural state and thusly remove ourselves from competition. We die from our own arrogance (pun intended)
SayYourPrayersJul 26, 2011
I think this song speaks to the belief that more is better. Our ancestors have travelled far and wide in order to discover what was available to plunder. That mentality is still totally pervasive to this day, in that people consistently strive to take more, have more, get more, be more, see more, do more, etc. Regardless of what negative effect this has on us.
legacy memberJul 11, 2004 · edited Sep 5, 2010
It is about people telling us what we want and us falling for it, being consumers of things we do not need. It seems that people are always striving for more, not always knowing why; just because they want to be comparable to others. We are greedy, and some day soon, that greed will swallow us whole.
legacy memberJul 11, 2004 · edited Date unknown
This is stating how we are bred simply to consume, and our modern lives are now defined by our property. The lyrics are saying that this destroys our ability to think and function as anything other than a consumer in a business market that our lives have become.