Ready for your close-up in the wake of the disaster,
Callous, condescending claims the network newscaster,
That with crimes of compassion correspondents have crossed the line,

Hollywood elite and ex-presidents unite,
We all wear a somber face for the cameras tonight,
It's only apropos when the bodies are piling high?

What's in it for us? is what the world bank asks,
When your country's highest export is our lowest working class,
You know it's not like common welfare is our raison d'etre,

You know we could have built those buildings out of real concrete,
Could have given them clean water and healthy food to eat,
But they looked over the numbers, saw no profit to be made?

[chorus:]
But where in the world was the world (before the big one came),
Where in the world was the world (for disease and acid rain),
Where in the world was the world (for the poisoned and the poor),
Yeah where was the world when an ounce of prevention could have saved a pound of cure?

So we turn a blind eye and the deafest of ears
To the most poverty-stricken country in the western hemisphere,
Throwing money at the problem now, too little and too late,

Well you can't blame fault lines for where they've fallen
But from a humanist perspective man I find it appalling,
That indifference and neglect resigned these souls to their sad fates?

Where was the world before it opened under,
Taking what was left of, all that we neglected?
Where was the world before it opened under them?

The nation of compassion only when the world is watching,
Do we take any action, then we rally round' the blood.