Happiness is Mine

By Nathan Payne | pablosmoglives | 2 Nov 2025

I wasn't looking for it, but this video describes perfectly one of the many reasons, maybe the reason, I am more comfortable in Latin America, a place where I am an obvious foreigner, as opposed to the Anglosphere, where my foreign-ness is perceived by sanctimonious people of every kind as self-importance. Projection, as usual.

My disenfranchisement isn't the byproduct of anything poetic or noble, it's an absolute incapacity to endure the sanctimony of people who think, for example (one among many), that my discography is an act of DEGENERATE WALLOWING AND REVELRY. Which it would most certainly be, for them. While there are real moments of intentional wallowing and revelry ("Happiness is Mine" comes to mind), they are reactive, an attempt to dampen the effects of the flames by embracing them. It isn't true belief in the hell. It is an attempt to resolve it. To overcome it. To defeat it. If you can't tell the difference, you are blessed in ways you don't even see. You take your blessings for granted.

You know what happens to things we take for granted, I hope.

I'm tired of being told to produce Christian content by idolatrous hypocrites rather than glorify God by telling the truth. Not my truth. The truth. The fact that I haven't had anything to write a song about in years is a BLESSING; I can't WAIT to get out of here, and go home where no explanations will ever be necessary (from the perspective of the sanctimonious) ever again. Because... you are aware that you believe you are entitled to an explanation, right? You don't even see it, but you've been shooting at my feet, making demands on me to dance to your sadistic tune since childhood. I turned the dance into songs, hundreds of them, and even then, you told me God would only bless my career if I'd stop dancing to the bullets you shoot at my feet and forced my art into an act of disingenuous "content creation" for Christ; you don't even see how the work has evolved. You conveniently ignore the fact that Johnny Cash's most famous late-period song was a NINE INCH NAILS cover. You idolize my trade. You don't even think it's work. You actually believe it belongs to you. You take it for free, and whine about the state of the culture, like you didn't have anything to do with it.

It's horrible.

"I am not a Christian artist.
I am an artist who is a Christian."
Johnny Cash

You are aware that you actually believe it matters what you believe, and that by ignoring this obvious red flag, by plowing through this warning sign posted in the middle of the path by your own sanctimony and ego, you are condemned to hell already?

Of course not. You don't accept the message. You project your ego on it. It doesn't matter what you believe. It only matters what is true. If what's important about the truth is that it's YOURS, then you have already abandoned the possibility of ever finding the truth. You're one of them now. A wallower. An egotist. A pig.

"Happiness," such as it is, is yours.

In spite of your best efforts, I have never felt the need to prove myself to you. I am damaged, but profoundly secure in myself, especially since getting sober over 11 years ago (and not even any weed for 5). If you can overcome your trauma with a day job and some income, you don't have trauma. If you can overcome your trauma with a million sexual encounters and a pile of drugs, you don't have trauma; you're a wallower. I have as little in common with you as I do with the people on high, preaching down to me about creating Christian content that debases God by denying His gifts for writing, and turns them into a consumable product for the ego of the self-righteous and entitled. I'm not sure it gets any more infernal than that. Content isn't art, any more than styrofoam packing peanuts are food. But they don't care. Like Iran, artlessness is not merely a trait in the Anglosphere; it's a virtue. What smug, dismissive spirit puts hijabs of religious idolatry on its artists, while elevating the producers of cheap, disposable cultural packing peanuts to the lofty title of "creator?" One that's going to hell, is what. The Anglosphere is claustrophobic. I don't understand how anyone can actually breathe up here. The air is made of ice.

Anyway, whatever. To quote the guy in the song, "baby I don't care anymore." Or maybe I do. Even in the flames, I knew that "love covers over a multitude of sins." I was banking on it (1 Peter 4:8). I know it goes against the spirit of content-wallowing to say so, but I put it in the song, I wrote it in the pit, because somewhere deep down I knew I wasn't going to stay there. Which is to say, God wasn't going to let me stay there. He knew I didn't like it, didn't believe in it, and was simply limping through the marathon with broken kneecaps and a secondhand heart. If I believed in the flames, and wasn't counting on LOVE TO COVER A MULTITUDE OF SINS, I have no doubt I would have died and gone to hell 20 years ago.

At least.

Embracing the flames doesn't put them out, by the way. It doesn't work. Behold the demon on the album cover in the "Happiness is Mine" video, and ask if that guy has any chance of finding life. Not like that he doesn't. But if going to hell in this life enhances one's proclivity for avoiding it in the next (and seeking the path away from it), well... Better that, than to eat the burning fruit of sanctimony, the most flammable substance known to man. Once it ignites, it never goes out.

As they say in Spanish,

"To God,"

Happiness is Mine

I ain't got no hope
my lover's gone to jail
spent all my money on dope
and my health's begun to fail
and I wouldn't know what to do
with your dreary peace of mind
my luck has gone to someone else
but this happiness is mine

We're on drugs because
the flies go buzz buzz buzz
and love covers over everything

Wake up shaking in a lake of naked girls
I'll break my neck before I'm taking off these pearls
so save your cute little threats and put your water gun away
this is what you get when you throw your life away
all the money you can eat, and all the bitches you can breathe
just one taste, you won't never wanna leave
you can stay where you are, or come inside with us where it's warm
baby I don't care anymore

We're on drugs because
the flies go buzz buzz buzz
and love covers over everything

Dope-sick chicks licking sticks of purple glue
underneath the bleachers with vomit in their shoes
no one said that it was pretty, no one said that it was clean
and if it was we wouldn't be here, cuz we're dirty, sick, and mean
we're like bugs, we got the sexiest drugs this side-a town
don't tell me you're in love with that alcoholic clown
tell that stupid MF to get himself a life
I came here for my friend, but I'm staying for his wife

We're on drugs because
the flies go buzz buzz buzz
and love covers over everything

The flies are my disciples, the roaches are my crew
don't tell me that you love me cuz I know it isn't true
but if you ever get lonely sleeping in your pretty little tree
there's plenty of room down here on the floor with me
don't worry about your boyfriend; he's in another state
leave your guardian angels at the gate
just take me to your leader, or whoever pays the bills
around this palace of malice, this whorehouse in the hills

We're on drugs because
the flies go buzz buzz buzz
and love covers over everything

I'll choke myself to death on a chicken bone
I'll slit my wrists before I'm ever going home
my daddy thinks I'm crazy
mama says that I'm insane
"why can't you be more like your brother?
were you born without a brain?"
my teeth are bared, but I ain't scared
and I don't care if I get burned
in this swimming pool of fire
cuz if there's anything I've learned
it feels good when you win
but it looks better when you lose,
and never underestimate a man with holes in his shoes

We're on drugs because
the flies go buzz buzz buzz
and love covers over everything

You think it will get better but it never does
the flies go buzz buzz buzz
and love covers over everything

It don't matter what you do
when the flies come down for you
love covers over everything