CHRIST - THE ALBUM
The original LP release came in a hard cardboard box and included two LP's consisting of the above and one called "Well Forked - But Not Dead" which was a collection of live tracks, rare old material and various studio bits. The lyrics here are for the studio tracks only. The box set also included a poster and a softcover book called A Series Of Shock Slogans And Mindless Token Tantrums. This included several essays by members of Crass and the lyrics.
Good old Crass, our make believe secret society, our let's pretend passport to perversity. They're nothing but a caricature and a joke.
HAVE A NICE DAY
Same old stuff, you've heard it all before,
Crass being crass about the system, or is it war?
We ain't got no humour, we don't know how to laugh,
If you don't fucking like it - fucking tough!
'Cos I'm the same old monkey in the same old zoo
Same old message trying to get through,
Screaming from the platform when the train ain't even there,
I've got a one way ticket, but I don't fucking care.
If what I've got to say is always much the same,
It's 'cos the game the system plays is still the same old game.
Senile idiots in their seats of power,
Ancient rotting corpses breathing horror by the hour.
They're lovers of death the fucking creeps,
Screwing our earth, as our earth weeps.
Iron ladies, steel men
Waiting for their fucking war to start again.
Blood lusting nutters plan death for us all,
They'll be hiding in their bunkers as we watch the missiles fall,
Ain't they just so decent, respectable and nice,
Eating the fat of the land while it's us that pay the price.
Westminster's full of psychopaths with blood clots 'stead of brains,
Flesh hungry vultures picking our remains,
Shitting on the world they've shat on many times before,
Fucked it good and proper, in the name of law.
Well bollocks to the lot of you and you can fuck off too,
If you're bored with what I say, no-one's asking you.
Just fuck off and have your fun,
Hoist your Jolly Roger and wave your plastic gun,
With your painted faces and your elegant style,
How about trying to think for a while?
As your decorate your lifestyle with cheap consumer bliss,
Forget about loving, it's your arse you're going to kiss.
As long as they've got you under their thumb
With T.V. lobotomy and media fun,
They'll have their way with you, what more can I say?
Watch out for the mind police, and have a nice day.
MOTHER LOVE
CHORUS: Mummy and daddy owned me till I could understand
That at the end of my arm was my own fucking hand.
In my head I had a brain that they filled up with lies,
That I didn't fucking need them with their love and family ties.
Little children shouldn't speak until they're spoken to,
They've just another showpiece to show the neighbours who
Can produce the perfect babe with everything in place,
But god help you if you come out without an angel face.
If you haven't got the looks that prove how nice you are,
You'll have failed your duty and that's all you fucking are,
You're just a status symbol that they need to have in life,
Just the proof they need to be the perfect man and wife.
CHORUS
Just like a fucking dustbin they fill you up with trash,
And tell you all that life is, is working for some cash,
Life's a competition and you've got to be the best,
So tread on everybody else, forget about the rest.
They tell you to be grateful for what they've done to you,
Like tell you the conditions and pump it into you,
That you really mustn't fail them cos you owe them a debt,
'Cos they're the ones that made you and they won't let you forget.
CHORUS
You're not a human in their eyes, you're a novelty.
They don't want you thinking, you'll break the fantasy,
The fantasy that you're a toy providing endless fun,
You're not a human being, you're their daughter or their son.
You bring them lots of happiness when you're very small,
But when you lose those darling looks no-one cares to call,
'Cos you're no more the cuddly toy for them to hug and hold,
You're not an individual and they're just getting old.
CHORUS
Didn't fucking need them with their love and family ties. (Repeat)
Didn't fucking need them with their love and bloody lies.
NINETEEN EIGHTY BORE
Who needs lobotomy when we've got the ITV?
Who needs ECT when there's good old BBC?
Switch on the set, light up the screen,
Fantasise and dream about what you might have been,
Who needs controlling when they've got the cathode ray?
They've got your fucking soul, now they'll fuse your brains away.
Mindless fucking morons sit before the set,
Being fed the mindless rubbish they deserve to get.
Can't switch off big brother, they've lost all will to act,
Lost in drab confusion, was it fiction, was it fact?
Another plastic bullet stuns another Irish child,
But no-one's really bothered, no, the telly keeps them mild.
They've lost all sense of feeling to the every hungry glow,
Drained of any substance by the vicious telly blow.
No longer know what's real or ain't, slowly going blind,
They stare into the goggle-box while the world goes by, behind.
The Angels are on TV tonight, grey puke fucking shit.
They army occupy Ireland, but the boot will never fit.
Was it Coronation Street? Or was it Londonderry?
Oh it doesn't fucking matter, Paul Daniels'll keep us merry.
Yes, I've heard of Bobby Sands, wasn't it Emmerdale Farm?
Yes, that's right, he was kicked by a cow, I hope it didn't do him no harm.
And wasn't the Holocaust terrible, a good thing it wasn't for real.
Of course I've heard of H-Block, it's the baccy with man appeal.
Deeper and deeper and deeper, layer upon layer.
Illusion, confusion, is there anyone left who can care?
Yes, the Abbey National cares for you Nat West and Securicor.
Well brings out the Branston bren-guns, let's spice it up some more.
The Sweeney are cruising Brixton, created another Belfast.
And J.R.'s advising Thatcher on lighting, make up and cast.
A thousand camera lenses point at the people's pain,
As millions of mindless morons watch the action replay again.
Action replay again.
Softly, softly, into your life, you're held in it's brilliant glow.
Softly, softly, feeding itself on the you you'll never know.
You're life's reduced to nothing, but an empty media game.
Big Brother ain't watching you mate, you're fucking watching him.
I KNOW THERE IS LOVE
Do you think I was born on this wretched earth for you to govern and
kill?
In your stinking factories and offices with your stupid systems and skills.
Do you think I've got nothing better to do than to grovel in the shit and
the crap,
Asking for the bread and home that's mine and waiting for a pat on the
back?
You think I've got nothing better to do than to live in the lie that you
give?
Learn the sweet morals, the lessons, the games and praise god for the fact
that I live?
You took me and made me a MAN by making me strong, the power of this land.
You took a woman and taught her she's less,
A slave to the strong no more than a guest.
You taught me to love, find a mate and to take
A woman to serve but your love is just rape.
You leave me my children to hold and distort, to bind with your rules of
normality till caught.
I give them the food that you sell in the shops, I'm told is has goodness
when it's only the slops.
You've taken my health with your shitty benevolence,
You've take my dignity with your dole queue dependence.
You taught me to steal when I wanted to share, to take for myself and not
even care.
You've shifted my vision with oppressive authority, the dreams and the
hopes nearly fade to strangle me.
You gave me confusion until I had learnt to obey all the orders and never
get burnt.
I shout in the streets and you take my voice, this sham of democracy leaves
no choice.
You've taken my eyes 'til there's nothing to see except abuse and destruction,
no chance to be free.
You've taken my thinking, my means of survival, thrust in my hand your
gun and your bible.
You told me to kill for the lord up above, you've given me hate when I
KNOW THERE IS LOVE.
BEG YOUR PARDON
CHORUS: Beg the question, bend the truth, bail out the basement while there's holes in the roof.
In the beginning they said there was light,
Well there ain't much left of it now.
We're lost in the darkness, searching sound and sight
Of an answer to the what, where or how.
We're talking 'bout freedom while we're locked in a cell,
Dreaming of a world without war,
Forced to live on the boundaries of hell
Like no-one's ever thought of peace before.
But what's the point of preaching peace if it's something you don't feel?
What's the point of talking love if you think that love ain't real?
Where's the hope in hopelessness?
Where's the truth in lies?
Don't try to hold my hand if you can't look me in the eyes.
CHORUS
In the beginning they said there was light
But somebody's burnt out the fuse.
And now we're all lost in eternal night
Looking for a candle to use.
Lots of little candles, isolated hope,
Frail little flames in the gale,
Lost little people who just can't cope,
Just knocking their heads on the nail.
What's the point of talking freedom if you just protect yourself?
What's the point of preaching sharing as you accumulate your wealth?
It's so easy to be giving if the things you give ain't real.
It's easy to lie if your ignore the things you feel.
CHORUS
In the beginning they said there was light
But we never had the eyes to see.
But rather than struggling or putting up a fight
We ran like lemmings to the sea.
No-one really wants to get it all together,
It's easier to just grab what you can.
Everybody's going it, hell for leather,
Building little castles in the sand.
Hypocrisy, delusion, lies, pretence, deceit,
Think only of yourself and the world's at your feet.
I don't believe the things you say, you make bullshit of the truth.
The game you play's offensive and you life's the living proof.
CHORUS
In the beginning they said there was light
But I'm tired of hearing their lies.
I'm tired of deceit, gonna put up a fight,
I'm going to use my own eyes.
Gonna make MY decisions, live my own life,
They can keep their darkness and gloom.
Hypocrisy, trickery, I've had enough,
They can keep their destruction and doom.
I've only one life and I'll live it my way,
They can keep their restrictions and law.
If they think different I'll have one thing to say... "Fuck off 'cos
I've heard it before."
BIRTH CONTROL
Industry on the mercenary bloodpath, military loves the gory warbath,
economics shape the battle landscape, all join together for the grand rape.
Moral intentions make a scapegoat, excuse the rotting corpse inside the
trenchcoat.
Praise the rotting minds above the club tie that sits in towers up in the
blue sky, above the clouds, obscure the scarred earth, discuss manoeuvres,
moves for more death, arms make profit from the crushed head, build the
towers up on the ditch head.
Betrayal forms the formal skyline, tinted windows catch the sunshine, such
ice cold beauty makes the heart sink, five thousand miles away the dead
stink.
And here the graveyard to insult them, the city shines with laughing tombstones.
The profiteers, the warcry butchers, stir up the lust for legal slaughter.
The living dead who look up to them, who accept authority the kills them,
work for the corporation making napalm, workers watch the burning children
on T.V. as they eat their meat pie with refusal in their minds eye to see
their own lives in that cold death, their state of wealth upon that lost
breath.
In the official offices of deathplan leaders of men work to betray man.
Stocks and shares declare the next war, the torture starts behind the locked
door, propaganda tops the big desk.
Compose an overture to fine death.
The hideous grey men of our nightmares dim the colour, foul the clean air,
their eyes forsake all that they dwell on, drag the lover from the loved
ones.
Patriots progress is a backstep, a cruel noose around a young neck.
They teach our children in the classroom to respect a madman on a rostrum,
to praise the dirty works of battle, bring out the ribbon, balloon and
rattle, to dig their own graves in the cold earth... so sad and pointless
now to give birth.
REALITY WHITEWASH
The grey man at the wheel
Looks around to see if there's some skirt he can steal
He doesn't really want to, he's just acting out a game
And in their own fucked up way, most people do the same
She cleans the bathroom mirror
So she can line her eyes
An expert in delusion, an artist in disguise
She's not content with what she is, but she does the best she can
But she doesn't do it for herself, she does it for her man
And meanwhile he's out hunting, this master of the hunt
Cruising down the high street in his endless search for cunt
And the posters on the hoardings encourage his pursuit
Glossy ads. where men are men, and women simply cute
And the men are in their motorcars and the men have nerves of steel
And they dreams of Charlies Angels as they firmly grip the wheel
And they fantasise they're screwing in the back seat of the car
Fantasise they're fucking with a real life movie star
Fantasies to fill the gaps, to fill in every crack
A whitewash on reality to hide the truth they lack
Now she's sponging down the cooker, on the surface all is fine
His dinner's in the oven 'cos he's doing overtime
She switches on the telly, it makes her feel secure
Helps confirm her way of life, who needs to ask for more
She sees the happy family unit, wife and hubby on the screen
The perfect social unit, just like it's always been
She's done the very best she can
To love and honour and obey her man
And if she should ever doubt the wisdom of her choice
She can turn on the television for its moderating voice
The ads. and weekly series are the proof she needs
That a life of boredom outweighs the deeds
She sits up till the epilogue and goes to bed alone
Content that when he's finished work he'll go straight home
Meanwhile he has another scotch, the lady has a coke
And if he's asked about the wife he treats it as a joke
"Hear the one about the you-know-what"
He's got what it takes and he takes what he's got
He took his woman and he'll take plenty more
She took on a rat to keep the wolf from the door
Then maybe in her loneliness she'll want to have a child
Who'll be taught the games of adulthood, boxed and filed
Another life to whitewash, to us a child is born
To follow in its parents' tracks, the path's well worn
Fantasy and falsehood, truth and lie
The fucked up system they call reality
The system needs its servants, each birth is one more
They'll gently talk of freedom as they quietly lock the door
'Cos the system needs its servants if the system's going to run
Needs its fodder for the workhouse, its targets for the gun.
Jean Paul Marat, died 1793
Let us once and for all
In this civilised world
End the idea of glorious wars
Won by glorious armies
Let us once and for all
See that neither side is glorious
And on each side men stand
Frightened and shitting themselves.
Let us once and for all
show real courage
No one wants to lie beneath the earth
People at war all want the same thing,
to walk upon it
Without crutches.
CHORUS: Ain't it just a rip of, oi, oi, oi
Ain't it just a rip of, oi, oi, oi
Ain't it just a rip of, oi, oi, oi
What a fucking rip off, oi, oi, oi.
Another threatening glance, another macho stance
Another aggressive fist, another arsehole pissed
Another vicious threat, a stream of blood stained sweat
Another bottle waved in the air, another battle with tension and fear.
CHORUS
Tell me, why do you glorify violence? Ain't there nothing better to
give?
Why fuck up the only chance to be yourself and really live?
You tell me you're a working class loser, well what the fuck does that
mean?
Is the weekly fight at the boozer gonna be the only action you've seen?
Are you gonna be one of the big boys, well, we've seen it all before
Muscles all akimbo as they boot down another door
Will you see yourself as the hero as you boot in another head
When you're just a pathetic victim of the media you've been fed
You're lost in your own self pity, you've bought the system's lie
They box us up and sit pretty as we struggle with the knots they tie
Okay, so you're right about one thing, no-one's got the right to shit on
you
But what's the point of shitting on yourself, what's that gonna do?
Working class hero beats up middle class twit
Media labels, system's shit
When it looks like the people could score a win
The system makes sure that the boot goes in.
Yeah it's the greatest working class rip off, oi, oi, oi
Just another fucking rip off, a fucking media ploy
It's the greatest working class rip off, oi, oi, oi
Ain't it just a rip off, ain't it just a rip off, ain't it just a rip off,
oi.
Punk attacked the barriers of colour, class and creed
But look at how it is right now, do you really think you're freed?
Punk once stood for freedom, not violence, greed and hate
Punk's got nothing to do with what you're trying to create
Anarchy, violence, chaos?
You mindless fucking jerks
Can't you see you're talking about the way the system works?
Throughout our bloody history force has been the game
The message that you offer is just the fucking same
You're puppets to the system with your mindless violent stance
That's right you fuckers, sneer at us 'cos we say "Give Peace a chance"
Punk is dead you wankers, 'cos you killed it through and through
In your violent world of chaos, what you gonna do?
Is Top Of The Pops the way in which you show how much you care?
Will you take off now to the USA and spread your message there?
Well mouth and trousers, sonny boy, never changed a thing
The only thing that'll ever change will be the song you sing
'Cos when you've bought your Rolls Royce car and your luxury penthouse
flat
You'll be looking down your nose and saying "Punk, dear chap, what's
that?"
You'll be the working class hero with your middle class dream
And the world will be the same as the world has always been
Punk's the people's music so you can stuff your ideas of class
That's just the way the system keep you sitting on your arse
Class, class, class, that's all you fucking hear
Middle class, working class, I don't fucking care.
It's the greatest working class rip off, oi, oi, oi
What a fucking rip off, oi, oi, oi
It's the greatest human sell off, oi, oi, oi
Ain't it just a rip off, oi, oi, oi.
Punk's the peoples music and I don't care where they're from
Black or white, punk or skin, there ain't no right or wrong
We're all just human beings, some of us rotten, some of us good
You can stuff your false divisions 'cos together I know we could
Beat the system, beat its rule
Ain't got no class, I ain't a fool
Beat the system, beat its law
Ain't got no religion 'cos I know there's more
Beat the system, beat its game
Ain't got no colour, we're all the same
People, people, not colour, class or creed
Don't destroy the people, destroy their power and their greed.
|
If this morning is a sad song, sing on such an old song, don't mind, sing on, keep on, don't mind, sing on. If all the world was as gentle as the breeze within my hands; If all the days weren't numbered for those who walk aimless down the high road; If the space between us as solid as I feel it there'd be no sad song. If all this was our world not mine, not yours, if all this was our world one we'd be Can you see? If you open your heart just a little you can whisper new song. |
DEADHEAD
Tired bored sad people, tired bored sad lives
Endless cars on endless roadways past endless shopfronts with endless lies
Even the winners, even the punters, tight lipped packages, think it's bad
Can't imagine a revolution could deal with anything so sad
Well it's all set up so you can't do it
No let up so you don't make it
And all arranged so you can't have it
All enclosed so you won't take it
Set in little pockets of isolation
Separated by regulation
Crushed for product in a rich man's passion
Relative ration for the ration nation
Tear a bit, smash a bit, cause a little pain
That's a contribution then they build it up again
Fool yourself thinking it's a holyheld belief
When all the time it's just another light relief
Oh boredom psychological stunt
You never really feel it when you're up at the front
And it doesn't really matter where the hell it's going
As long as everybody has the hot blood flowing....
Excitement and thrills
Will put off the ills
Radical frills
Docility pills
New Wave, splash in the plan
Real music by dildo dan
Tired old discos, shame balam
Soddern modern, christ, futurists again
Play the machine
Crank up the dream
We're just what we seem
Know what I mean?
But no-one can wipe out the last five years
So there's other ways of living than in supergloo pairs
Marry me darling?
Fuck off, creep!
Tired and lonely, life on the cheap
Didn't plan it, but now we're very happy
Another poor fucker drowns in its nappy
Bakunin and bollocks and fun and farts
Hit the right fantasy and come up the charts.
Treat people like shit and that's what you get.
YOU CAN BE WHO?
CHORUS: Don't want a life of lies and pretence
Don't want to play at attack and defence
Just want my own life. I want to be free
So you can be you, and I can be me.
Respectable businessmen smart and secure
Eat the fat of the land that they robbed from the poor
The butcher is smiling as he brings down the knife
As he cuts up the meat, he thinks of the wife
As eminent psychiatrists suffer paranoid fits
The ones they call mad have to pick up the bits
The preachers speaks calmly, says it's love that we lack
While his imaginary dagger is held at our back.
CHORUS
In bed you're the master or mistress, who cares?
Abusing each other as your work off your fears
Go climb a mountain, go fuck a scout
Avoidance of self is what it's about
Pretence and illusion to avoid who you are
Don't work on yourself, just polish the car
Switch on the telly afraid you might find
That as well as a body you've also a mind
Cheap glossy surface to cover the lie
Cheap easy answers to the what, where and why
Media drivel, yet you still watch the screen
Life ain't for real, it's a magazine
Conned from the start but hang onto the lies
You're a slave to the cathode ray paradise
You don't want the world, you just want the pics
Media junkies, you'd die for a fix.
CHORUS
So you say you'll reject it, well that's maybe a start
But it's so fucking easy to act out a part
You say you'll reject it, but still toe the line
Conning yourself that you're doing just fine
Anarchy, freedom, more games to play?
Fight war, not wars? Well it's something to say
Slogans and badges worn without thought
Instant identities so cheaply bought
Well freedom ain't product, it just isn't fun
If you're looking for peace your work's just begun
Fighting oppression, aggression and hate
Fighting warmongers before it's too late
We've got to fight back to show that we care
For so many years we've been silenced by fear
Our lives have been ruined by liars and fools
The powerful and greedy who bind us with rules
Politicians and preachers who bind us with laws
Stolen our peace and given us wars
They've used us as means to their own violent ends
Turned us against each other, made foes out of friends
They've distorted, perverted, polluted our lives
Bainwashed the world with their sordid beliefs
They seek to possess, control and corrupt
If it's freedom we're after, they've got to be stopped.
BUY NOW, PAY AS YOU GO
Buy now, pay as you go,
Buy now, say hello.
You can put a mortgage on your life
To enter Shoppers' Paradise.
A trade-in for your dignity.
A lovely colour console TV.
To watch and cherish as the days slip by,
And dream of the things that money can buy.
Brushed chrome shit, plastic crap,
My life and my vision is worth more than that.
Plate glass ghetto, shopping spree,
I'm no fucking commodity.
Lusting for objects, white wall refrigerator.
Cut off your fingers and buy a vibrator.
Get them while it lasts, your time is running out.
It's a new mink for chrismas, that's what life's about.
A new tank, a new bomb, awaits you in the store.
Is life all that shallow that you're reaching out for more?
Start planning now for a family plot.
A satin-lined bunker where your corpses can rot.
Well there's nothing for sale here, no day-glo gore.
And I ain't no waxed-up showroom whore.
I don't need carrots in front of my eyes.
Man made pre-fab, polyester lies.
Or sexy glossy adverts left on my mat.
I live with my needs I don't need that.
I Don't need a yacht to take a cruise.
Don't need a telephone in the loo.
Won't barter my soul for a rip-joint sale.
Excess is just another nouveau jail.
Don't want to grow fat off the fat of the land,
Or to choke on the greed of public command.
Work thirty years with one foot in the grave.
Possession junkie, consumer slave.
If money buys freedom it's already spent.
Your object's the subject of my contempt.
Buy now, pay as you go,
Buy now, say hello.
Bye bye
Bye bye.
RIVAL TRIBAL REBEL REVELS (PART. 2)
Cor blimey guvnor I'm the big 'un, cop an eyeful of this muscular arm.
Being tough n' rough is my kind of fun but, of course, I never do no harm.
It ain't my fault I like cracking bones, gives me a funny kind of thrill,
And I can't help smiling at the pathetic moans, when I go in for the kill.
Tribal wars are raging, it's a battlefield on the street, there's games to play and hell to pay when the rival tribal rebels meet.
Why can't people just leave me be?
I can't help doing what I do,
But I'll do anybody who ain't like me so forget your what, why or who.
I ain't got no purpose and I don't give a fuck,
I never asked for this life.
If you're looking for reasons you're out of luck, I'll show you the point
with my knife.
Tribal wars are raging, no-one's safe out on their own,
The gangs are about and they scream and shout, so you'd better not be caught
alone.
I did it 'cos there ain't nothing else to do, there ain't nowhere'll
let me in.
It ain't my fault I want to hurt and screw
So I've destroyed every place where I've been.
I had trouble at the local so they won't serve me there,
I just had to chivvy up this bloke,
I left him with a smile cut from ear to ear but the bleeder never got the
joke.
I used to have a bird but I put her up the spout so I had to tell her where
to get off.
Well, you can't blame me if I want to get about, if you're a man you've
gotta be tough.
I used to go down the cafe for tea but my boot got attacked by the door,
So now it ain't open for the likes of me and we're back on the streets
like before.
Tribal wars are raging, our heroes are standing tall, but the truth of the matter, if you cut out the patter, is that pride always comes before the fall.
They can stand on the corner with their violence and their hate, stand
there and fester 'til they've left it too late
To realise it's themselves they've put their on the spot 'cos they've wasted
the one and only life that they've got.
Tribal wars are raging, everyone's acting out bad parts,
Hey there big man, take a look at yourself, it's in the mirror that the
real war starts.
BUMHOOLER
CHORUS: If they drop a bomb on us, we fucking deserve it,
We know we got it coming, we fucking deserve it,
They got a comfy set up, they'll try and preserve it.
We had the early warning, we can sit and observe it.
Sliding down guidelines, cradle to the grave,
All the willing saviours see that we behave.
Everybody knows they're there, see them all around.
Lots of little people who'll put you in the ground.
Well, take a burning issue and stuff it up your arse.
They've fucked you with a furrowed brow, shitting broken glass,
Marching down the 'dilly to demonstrate again,
While the men who plan the holocaust are pissed out of their brain.
Brain of pasty people, who'll bomb it all to fuck,
You can be a victim or they'll let you try your luck,
Pass it on to others, ship it down the line,
Leave the world in ruins, you know we've got the time.
CHORUS
Cop-outs look for motives... Freudian analyst,
Come on, Mr Horror, what do you make of this?
Won't find many people without their rationale,
Any handy concept to hang upon the wall,
Soldier got his enemy,
Police have got the state,
Family have home sweet home,
SS got red tape.
MP's got his duty,
Priest has got his sin,
Everybody finds a hole,
To drop somebody in.
Seeking out wisdom in the ironies of life,
Weighting up subtleties, fiddling with the ties,
No-one else decides for you, whether to or not,
You make an easy target if you're running on the spot.
CHORUS
Someone's been training, flexing their muscles,
Getting in practice, irrelevant tussles,
Given a march, or a quiet Sunday demo,
They wait till the state put the finger on you.
Peeping through a frown, your humanity in rags,
Playing the loser till the sense of purpose sags,
They can deal with heroes, watch the bleeders run,
It's only your head keeps the target from the gun,
No-one else decides for you, whether to or not,
You make an easy target, if you're running on the spot...
SENTIMENT
Feathers burn so easily, the cat is blinded in the garden, last vision
the lark is flame.
The cattle shed gives off the smell of sunday kitchen, the gentle eye,
the dispensable perfection.
Before the flash takes two weeks' food, pile the sacks of earth and hide.
All of us here know it, we grew with it.
Fighting amongst ourselves, leaving bits of flesh on barbed wire, a little
blood on the floor.
Locks and bars across the door, well versed in violation, our children
beat each other in the garden.
Our failure to accept the earth, we talk of love but push it to the edge.
This is no natural aggression composing death,
I am afraid for beauty when I see the fist, the perfect hand that turns
against itself, the perfect hand that holds a gun or wields a butcher's
blade, or leads to death the used-up bull or incarcerates the hopeless
fool or takes the forest with a single flame and leaves the next an empty
shell.
Human kind condemns the hunting beast yet their own choice leaves behind
such ragged meat.
The military dream of blood, their sweet wine flowing in the veins of men
who work towards our bloody end.
They fly Enola gaily, give birth to this waiting... waiting, give us the
reality of our hatred, give the earth nothing.
Melting, goats dead on the green, dying lambs bleating by the wire... three
last days on the earth, I lay down to die in the grass.
MAJOR GENERAL DESPAIR
We're looking for a better world, but what do we see? Just hatred, poverty,
aggression, misery.
So much money spent on war when three quarters of the world is so helplessly
poor.
Major General Despair sits at his desk, planning a new mode of attack,
he's quite unconcerned about chance or risk, the Major General's a hard
nut to crack.
Oh yes, he designs a cruise missile, tactically sound, operationally OK,
while the starving crawl onto the deathpile, they can't avoid their fate
another day.
Attack on the mind, but he calls it defence, but I ask you again who's
it for?
Do the starving millions who don't stand a chance hope to benefit by his
stupid war?
Babies crippled with hunger before they could walk, mothers with dry breasts
cry dry tears, and meanwhile Major General Despair gives a talk on increasing
the war budget over the years.
How can they do it, these men of steel, how can they plot destruction,
pain?
Is it the only way they can feel, by killing again and again?
Is it some part of themselves that has died that permits them to plan as
they do?
Or is it us that is dead, do we simply hide from the responsibility to
stop what they do?
There's so many of us, yet we let them have their way, at this moment they're
plotting and planning.
We've got to rise up to take their power away, to save the world that they're
ruining.
They're destroying the world with their maggot-filled heads, death, pain
and mutilation, they've got the responsibility of millions of dead.
Yet they're still bent on destruction.
The generals and politicians who advocate war should be made to wade in
the truth of it, they should spend sleepless nights shivering with fear
and by day time should crawl in the deathpit.
They'll find the truth of what they've done there, festering corpses they
and their kind made, eyeless skulls that endlessly stare having seen the
truth of military trade.
The earth was our home, the wind and the air, the blue sky, the grass and
the trees, but these masters of war, what do they care?
Only sentiments, these.
It's our world but through violence they took it away, took dignity, happiness,
pride.
They took all the colours and changed them to grey with the bodies of millions
that died.
They destroy real meaning through their stupid games, make life a trial
of fear.
They destroy what values we have with their aims, make us feel it's wrong
if we care.
Well, we do care, it's our home, they've been at it too long, if it's a
fight they want it's beginning.
Throughout history, we've been expected to sing their tired song but now
it's OUR turn to lead the singing....
Fight war, not wars,
Make peace, not wars.
Fight war, not wars, we know you've heard it before.
Fight war, not wars,
Make peace, not wars.
Fight war, not wars,
Make love, not wars
1-2-3-4 we don't want your fucking war.
We don't have civilisation any more. We have a state of barbarism. A state of barbarism in which we are daily, hourly, threateningwith annihilation our fellow citizens. Now, looking at you I know one thing, we can win, we can win. I want you to, I want you to sense your own strength.
A MESSAGE TO THATCHER, HER GOVERNMENT, THOSE WHO SUPPORT HER AND ALL THOSE WHO ARE WILLING TO SEND LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE OF WAR.
We never asked for war, nor in the innocence of our birth were we aware of it. We never asked for war, nor in the struggle to realisation did we feel that there was a need for it. We never asked for war, nor in the joyyful colours of our childhood were we conscious of its darkness.
'The sky is empty and it's turning different shades of coulour,
It never did before and we never asked for war.
My mind is empty and my body different shades of torture,
It never was before and we never asked for war.
The buildings are empty and the countryside is wasteland,
It never was before and we never asked for war.
The playgrounds are empty and the children limbless corpses,
They never wee before and they never asked for war.
No-one is moving and no doves fly here.
No-one is thinking and no doves fly here.
No-one remembers beyond all this fear.
No doves fly here'.
The Mob 1982.
We never asked for war; this glib, horrific indifference, that leads young men barely old enough to have experienced anything of the joy of life to kill and be killed, is something that you have imposed upon us. You snatch these young bodies from the brain-washing cradle of the schollroom to be maimed, mutilated and slaughtered in the cold grave of your cynicism. You tear these young bodies from their homes to die in the foreign soil of your barren, bloodstained minds. How perverted you are, how distorted and twisted, how divorced from the simple joy of existence. You dare to threaten to one life that we have with your pained violence. In the crystal light of our lives you are the darkest shadow.
Each body that you shovel into the mass graves of history is another darling boy that you have bled, another precious life that you have defiled, another act of creation that you have dared to violate. What is birth to you but another rag that you may wring and slap and beat and discard? What is life to you but another plastic body-bag into which you defecate? What is death to you but the difigured bodies of our children upon whose angel faces you smear your rancid droppings?
How grand you must feel as you chart out your battlefields; each feature on that map describes the desolation of your mind. How powerful you must feel as you order the plunder and rape of those battlefields; each bayonet that turns in some contracting stomach is the pointing finger of your right hand. How omnipotent you must feel as those young men stumble in the death of those battlefields; each death is part of you that dies.
How glorious war. How rich the experience of war.
Those castaway boys, deranged, dismembered, crying, homeless, are the reality of your honor, the actuality of your insanity. That horror is the heritage that you create. That insanity is the tradition that you leave to those as yet unborn. The frightened corpses of the living are shadowed by your arrogance. The limbless corpses of the dead are devoured in your lust for power. The maggots that inch away at the rotting flesh are your true compatriots, you keep them fed, they are your true companions. Those bodies were my brothers that you have destroyed. That battlefield is my home that you have burnt in your fire.
Your minds are filth. Your lives are corruption. You are the walking dead, the parasites who bleed this earth of ours, that dry the waters from the river-beds and give us blood in its place.
YOU STAND ACCUSED OF PREMEDITATED, CALCULATED AND COLD-BLOODED MURDER. YOUR CRIMES ARE WELL DOCUMENTED. YOUR GUILT IS THE RESPONSABILITY THAT ONE DAY YOU WILL HAVE TO REALISE.
Crass. 3rd June 1982.