Lyrics
The words for some of our songs: Ballad of a Carbon Cowboy, Keep Eating, Feckless Dreams of the Ultra Rich, The Desert, Troika, No Swimming, Lord of Misrule, and Santa, I've Been Good, So Bring Me A New Government. The lyrics (and indeed names) of these songs may change without warning.
Ballad of a Carbon Cowboy
I was standing at a roadblock in a raging hurricane
and the hailstones were coming down like bullets
Ripping off the native's always been my kind of game
and I'm damned if I won't find a way to do it.
For land is the answer, it's always the same,
it's only the questions and motives that change
And these Javanese have the land that we need
and their homes are the wood we won't burn.
Ah, the warnings were endless and endlessly they went unheard
Ah, the roaring of engines was sweeter than sweetest of birds
The president round here will lend a sympathetic ear,
he owes his slender grip on power to the Clintons
Little need to say that he believes in cap and trade,
it's a carpet bagger's way to make a million
Let's do a deal, the ICAO,
the jumbos above and the jungles below
And trees that we'll leave undisturbed for a while
as a monument to humankind
Ah, the warnings were endless and endlessly they went unheard
Ah, the roaring of engines was sweeter than sweetest of birds
I was stranded in Jakarta as I tried to get back home,
cos the aeroplanes had melted to the tarmac
The screens in the departure lounge were putting out some show
that we need to go start drilling in the arctic
And briefly as one as we swear and we curse,
god's very own white man on our planet of dirt
Still claiming the sound of the seven-four-seven
is sweeter than sweetest of birds
Keep Eating
This mother of pantomimes designed to keep us fat
Has been going through some tricky times
And everybody's fantasising that the worst has passed
While clutching at their forks and knives
Metropolitan restaurants are groaning fit to burst,
The belts have never been so tight
While libraries and swimming pools are closing in the North
And the cities pass another restless night.
Journalists are sticking to their scripts
That we've got to live with leaner times
And the poor man is a burden on the rich
While the markets reach unprecedented highs
The managers are cashing up their tips
Whilst waitresses take out more loans
They pile another plate up with cheap meat
And keep the diners in their seats.
Keep the diners in their seats - they've got to keep eating to give us all alive!
Keep their plates filled up with meat!
They've got to keep eating!
Calls for self-restraint would look like treason
With the world in such a state
Who knows what hungry men would start to feed on
If they ever looked up from their plates?
Quantative easing is the reason why the metropole keeps feeding
Though the provinces are bleeding dry
Buying back the bonds by printing money is one way to keep things running
But it's going to give out by and by.
The world is being crushed beneath our weight
And we can't live on bread alone
The shark seeks colder waters - it went hungry that year
And still the endless feast goes on
Feckless Dreams of the Ultra-Rich
I dreamt bought a handbag - it cost me much more than your car
And then I built a spaceship: I'm Ozymandias on Mars!
I dream of low inflation, and fantasise about a flat-rate income tax
Down in the Bank of English they're raising interest rates at last -
The lenders can relax.
My football team keeps losing, it's going way down in the league
I bought myself a new one - now I've got three provincial teams.
And then I had a nightmare that the Communists had taken back control
And took back all those assets that those democrats, the Yeltsin Party stole
And so I shot those miners, for wanting more than they deserve
And can some remind me what a human life is worth?
I let the market tell me what we're doing here on earth -
My rivals' lawyers tell me they're buying up the universe.
Notes from a Speech by the UN Secretary General for Trade and Environment
"The largest company in the world is not Wall-Mart, GM or Ford,
It is nature - and it's failing
It is the sick man among the nations.
And we've got to start preserving it, those ecosystem services,
Giving fair share to the owners
(with a topslice for the brokers)"
These are the words of the UN Secretary General for Trade and Environment
How can you say I misquoted him?
These are his words, they can never be taken back.
Gods may come and gods may go, but humans are the CEOs
And our share price is in ascendance,
Which is great news for our descendants.
Nothing will be safe until the day on which it pays as much to spare them as to kill them
(we preserve them to consume them)
These are the words of the UN Secretary General for Trade and Environment
How can you say I misquoted him?
These are his words, they can never be taken back.
The Desert
If I run out of fuel, then I will be stranded,
stuck in the desert that covers the south of England
Rain stings the windscreen, the road is deserted,
but up in the fields a lone light gleams.
I'm stuck on the tarmac, and I wind down the window.
The sky is an ocean and it's drowning the stars.
One dismal Christmas day I spent on the motorway
to see for myself the desert in the heart of England.
Troika
This job's not easy - applications wanted only from the best.
You have to keep the share price soaring whilst clamping down on popular unrest.
But doors will open; the corridors of power will be your stomping ground.
Don't mind the smell of tear gas or the sound of local bobbies firing baton rounds.
Because if you can face the future with a calculating eye,
and keep a leonine face whilst toeing the bottom line.
If you can preach the virtue of suffering in silence,
it's an ideal time to be in international finance
Because rules were made to make more rules,
rules were made to make more rules,
rules were made to make more rules,
and we make the rules
You remind me of what I was like only yesterday.
You tell the girls you love the poor but in the end you settled for the job that brings the highest pay
When you're with us we've got your back and you will never feel alone.
But if you screw things up, we'll tell the world that you acted on your own.
I'll let you in on a secret preserved by the banks,
that mass unemployment is good for the poor.
Malthus has told us: it thins out their ranks,
and the ones that survive become entrepreneurs.
Who would have guessed when we were picking our careers as undergraduates
I could have been the King of France, or at least in charge of Greece and the Italians?
Because if you can face the future with a calculating eye
Show a leonine face face whilst toeing the bottom line
If you can preach the virtue of suffering in silence
Then it's an ideal time to be in international finance
Because rules were made to make more rules
Rules were made to make more rules
Rules were made to make more rules
And we make the rules
No Swimming
"Water can be pleasant to look at,
but it is also man's deadly foe.
No swimming" - love from Harrogate Borough Council
Ball games are find on the telly,
but not when they're played near a road.
No ball games - by order of local byelaw.
No smoking, no drinking, no ball games, no swimming - no
My girlfriend got two months in prison,
for taking her drink on the street.
No drinking - by order of West Yorkshire police
The barman will stamp out your roll-up,
if you try to smoke in the pub.
No smoking - do you remember a time when you could?
No smoking, no drinking, no ball games, no swimming - no
You get filmed and harassed, arrested and attacked
if you say the troops should get out of Iraq.
No demonstrating - by order of the Labour MPs.
And if you thought things have improved now that Cameron rules,
then you're a fool.
Lord of Misrule
The puppets have broken their strings
As they lie on the stage, their wooden limbs twitch and they open their eyes
The silence is broken at last
The decades I've prayed that the music would start have now come to an end
While riot police dangle on lines from the clouds
trying in vain to hold back the crowds,
which threaten to steal the emperor's throne as his highness knows only too well
The cobweb-strewn orchestra stirs
Filling their lungs and remembering songs long unsung
The puppets will step from the stage
at the sound of the drum - and each time it comes another cold dreamer awakes
I curse you, the audience who gawp at the show.
The beggars will rise up and lay the lords low
And all I need do is to mark out the ground and it's time for the show to begin.
I curse you, the audience who gawp at the show.
The beggars will rise up and lay the lords low
And cry that it's time for the show to begin -
The players are naked, their brittle bones thin
With blood in their ears and the emperor screaming
"God save me!"
This story interests me - your actions please me
And so for the whole year I will stay with you
In the heart of the battle I'll heal you
If only to see what you go on to do
For I am the Lord of Misrule
Santa, I've Been Good, So Bring Me A New Government
The sky slams shut and the pale sun rises all hedged in with bars
When I search for you I navigate by choppers stitched across the stars
Santa Claus in armour drives his reindeer at the crowd
While smoke and ash fly up like stupid snowflakes to the clouds
I don't owe my life to you,
...but I think that someone will before we're through
When I was in trouble, you rescued me, you broke the line and set me free
When I lost my shoe as the police broke through you found it and you threw it to me
But late that night the news was read, by the nation's favourite marionette
And he swore at you and he put you down and wished that you were dead.
I don't owe my life to you,
...but I think that someone will before we're through.
I've been good, Santa, I've been good.
