In “Their Game, Our Fight,” Civic Hush strips away the patriotic veneer of wasteland warfare to reveal the cold, calculating geometry of a chessboard. This is a battle-hardened anthem about the expendability of the “pawns” and the immunity of the “kings.”
The Rigged Board
Civic uses the metaphor of a chess game to illustrate a systemic betrayal. She points out the bitter reality that “kings don’t bleed”—they merely move the pieces. While the citizens are “bound by law and yellowed oaths,” the ruling class “toasts their wine with our regrets.” The song highlights the cognitive dissonance of being told “silence is bold” while being marched into “battles they don’t read.” To Civic, the conflict isn’t about ideology; it’s a rigged game where the “board is our blood.”
Checkmate Never Knew Us
The track is driven by a relentless, heavy military cadence: “Left right left / Their game our fight.” This rhythm serves as a reminder of the “uniform dreams” and “rationed hope” that keep the wasteland moving. Civic exposes the “generals behind the veil” and the “scribes who rewrite the losing tale,” suggesting that history itself is just another piece of equipment used to maintain the status quo. The final, haunting observation—that “checkmate never knew us at all”—suggests that even in the end, the individual soldier is invisible to the players who started the game.
THEIR GAME, OUR FIGHT
by: Civic Hush
Left right left
Their game our fight
Check the board kings dont bleed
Its pawns who march and queens who plead
They toast their wine with our regrets
And crown their castles in our debts
Their game our fight square by square
They move the masses fake despair
Their board our blood black and white
While we play fair they rig the fight
Uniform dreams rationed hope
Bound by law and yellowed oaths
While generals bet behind the veil
And scribes rewrite the losing tale
Names we carry wars we feed
Burnt in battles they dont read
One more move and we all fall
Checkmate never knew us at all
Their game our fight stain the stone
We bled for flags they disown
Their board our blood die for gold
Still told our silence is bold
Left right left
Still we fall still they rise