Yes Sir, I Will

The door stands open
Across lines, invisible hands are held, golden streamers building in the night
Alone, the possibilities are enormous
Step outside and parasites, deprived of their meat, wait to suck on tiring flesh
Unending statistics that fatten leaders, prisoners of their morality
Afraid of death, we can not save ourselves
To breathe is not enough

Yes sir, I Will

When you woke this morning you looked so rocky-eyed
Blue and white normally, but strange ringed like that in black
It doesn't get much better, your voice can get just ripped up shouting in vain
Maybe someone hears what you say, but you're still on your own at night
You've got to make such a noise to understand the silence
Screaming like a jackass, ringing ears so you can't hear the silence
Even when it's there. Like the wind seen from the window
Seeing it but not being touched by it

Words sometimes don't seem to mean much
Of anyone we've used more that most
Feelings from the heart that have been distorted and mocked
Thrown around in the spectacle, the grand social circus

Up against the rows of grey robots who control our lives
The things we have to offer sometimes seem so frail
As they plan destruction and gain respectability
We offer our creativity and are made outcasts

We didn't expect to find ourselves playing this part
We were concerned with ideas, not rock and roll
But we can't avoid that arena
It's become a part of us even if we don't understand it

In attempts to moderate they ask why we don't write love songs
What is it that we sing then?
Our love of life is total, everything we do is an expression of that
Everything that we write is a love song

We look for alternatives
But the enormous power of the media makes it so difficult
To establish foundations. Their lies and distortions are so extreme
That everything becomes poisoned and corrupted
We can become media personalities, but it is always on their terms
We're tired of living up to other people's expectations when our own are so much higher
Intelligence seems so easily dismissed when it doesn't conform to mainstream values
Lennon said "They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool"
He was right. Social intelligence merely requires agreement and compromise

The boundaries are becoming narrower as the State becomes more paranoid
Under authoritarian rule, conformity becomes the only security
Fear is a powerful weapon against human development
Cowering in our temples of self there's little chance of change
The State is aware of that. The bomb serves many functions
If fear of the omnipotent God is no more
The nuclear Father will govern with his shepherd's crook
Drawing his flock closer to the valley of the shadow of death

Those of us who stand out against the status quo
Do so against all odds
We cling so closely together
Because we have little other than ourselves
Critics say that it's just punk rock or that we're just naive anarchists
They hope to discredit us with their labels and definitions
Throughout history societies have condemned those who are later celebrated as heroes
In so many bourgeois homes Van Gogh's sunflowers radiate from the walls
Yet he lived in utter misery, condemned by those very same people
Why is it that the kind and gentle are subjected to violence and riducule?
How is it that the small and mealy-minded have gained so much power?
What perversion has taken place that we are governed by fools?

We've had problems from self-appointed Gods from Bishops to MPs
They've tried to ban our records saying that we're a threat to decent society
Fuck them. I hope we are
What kind of depraved idiot thinks they can silence others by denying them their voice?
For fucks sake, who are these lobotomists?
As if walls only had one side
Whispered intimacies might not get through
But cries of anguish know no barriers
But how long do we shout for?
Denied the airwaves, we trust in the wind to carry what we say
But sometimes we've found ourselves shouting into the wind
When we should have been confiding in each other
It seems so absurd that we are denied the chance of ever being truly free
The terrible inequalities of the peoples of this earth
Make freedom at best a dream, at worst an insulting privilege
What space is there for self-expression and personal development
When over half the world's population is starving?
There are so many things that might have been done
But rooted on this spot in the desire to find solution
There's little to see and feel but the sighing and dying of our world
But for suffering we might have been a part of it rather than apart from it

Making the compromises
Brave fronts, deceitful disguises. What did you know? What did you care?
What did you know? What did you care?
Turning a blind eye to the lies just to keep it all together
But sometimes when I'm alone like this I wonder whether it's worth it

Smiling and socialising
Endless philosophising. What did you know? What did you care?
What did you know? What did you care?
Surface agreements, statements of fact, trying to prove we can do it
But sometimes when I'm alone like this I wonder just who can see through it

Bargains and sacrifices
Cheap tricks, cheaper devices. What did you know? What did you care?
What did you know? What did you care?
Holding the vision, but losing our sight, endlessly searching solution
But sometimes when I'm alone like this I wonder how much it's just institution

What did you know? What did you care?
What did you know? What did you care?
What did you know? What did you care?
What did you know? What did you care?
Anarchy's become another word for 'got 10p to spare?' What did you know? What did you care?
Another way of saying 'I'm O.K., sod you out there'. What did you know? What did you care?
Another token tantrum to cover up the fear. What did you know? What did you care?
Another institution, another cross to bear. What did you know? What did you care?
etc. etc

Anything and everything can be so easily institutionalised
A poor parody of itself. Itself contained by itself
There's no point in just mouthing the words
The token tantrums just aren't enough
Nor is speed and weed and the Positive Creed
Exclusive clubs where the various tribes congratulate each other for doing fuck all
Will achieve nothing but the strengthening of the status quo
Punk has spawned another rock and roll elite
Cheap Rotten Vicious imitations thinking they'll change their world
With dyed hair and predictable gestures. Nouveau wankers
There's a thousand empty stages waiting for their empty performances
A thousand empty faces waiting for their empty stances
How many times must we hear rehashed versions of Feeding of the 5000
By jerks whose only fuck off to the system has been one off the wrist?
It's the Feeding of the 5 Knuckle Shuffle

If there was no government, wouldn't there be chaos
Everybody running round, setting petrol bombs off?
And if there was no police force, tell me what you'd do
If thirty thousand rioters came running after you?
And who would clean the sewers? Who'd mend my television?
Wouldn't people lay about without some supervision?
Who'd drive the fire engines? Who'd fix my video?
If there were no prisons, well, where would robbers go?

And what if I told you to Fxxk Off?

What if there's no army to stop a big invasion?
Who'd clean the bogs and sweep the floors? We'd have all immigration
Who'd pull the pint at the local pub? Where'd I get my fags?
Who'd empty out my dustbins? Would I still get plastic bags?
If there were no hospitals, and no doctors too
If I'd broken both my legs, where would I run to?
If there's no medication, if there were no nurses
Wouldn't people die a lot? And who would drive the hearses?

And what if I told you to Fxxk Off?

If there were no butchers shops, what would people eat?
You'd have everybody starving if they didn't get their meat
If there was no water, what would people drink?
Who'd flush away the you-know-what? But of course MINE never stink
What about the children? Who'd teach them in the schools?
Who'd make the beggers keep in line? Learn them all the rules?
Who's tell us whitewash windows? When to take down doors?
Tell us make a flask of tea and survive the holocaust?

The rock and roll swindler says it's O.K. to plunder
So the pirates set sail to rape any ethnic culture they can plug a mike to
The imperialists rub their hands in glee
As the slave-boy hunts out butt-ends in the garbage cans
Is it any wonder there was such sickening celebration over the Task Force
When so called radicals work hand in hand with the ruling elite?
Yesterday those wily creeps rejected the status quo
Today they smarm and charm passageways to its very heart
Where's the free individual in all that?
Where's the hope and aspiration?
Identities have become corporations
Social egos and media moulds
Scholars of ad-man's dreams. Prescribed futures
Must we all down aspirins and shine beneath borrowed tans?
Are we really so dumb, so cowered into submission
That not only are we prepared to eat shit
We're also prepared to say thanks for the privilege?
Why should we accept servility as a bargain for dignity?
Why should we passively accept death as a bargain for living?
Why accept this robbery of life? Why accept this pillage?
For Christ's sake take up your bed and walk
Let the blind see end the deaf hear
The rights of the individual are dependent upon
You realising your right as an individual
People are so easily deluded into thinking they've instrumented choice
Where in reality they're nothing but passive observers
Passive observers do nothing but passively observe
Passively soak up creativity and say "Wow, that's me!"
Passively soak up destruction and say "Oh no, not us, not me"
There are those who strive for value and meaning
Who search for reason and purpose
Their efforts are negated by the passive observers

They spend days before the T.V. set so burned out
Is it any wonder they've lost all sense of vision and possibility?
What chance does anyone have when all the spaces are filled?
Sipping breakfast teas to the sound of Space Invaders

Television is today's Nuremberg
Bowing to its authority, they become it
I've seen four year old children conforming to media roles
Main-lining the gross theatre that will become their lives
The television has so dampened people's anger
The population is mesmerised by the flickering screen
And the streets, where the politics of reality were once created
Are deserted at night and the rulers sleep secure
They are under no threat as long as the people are sedated
Those who suffer head-aches from excessive intake of electrons are prescribed valium
Or pay for a fix at the pub where men have to piss up the wall
And the stench of urine lasts well into the next pint

Entertainment is designed to gloss over real problems
And very often those who profess dissent only add to the deception
Words are banded about, but always at the whim of the puppeteer
Actionless sloganeering is just another Punch and Judy show

Any information that we receive concerning the real world is carefully controlled
Why else would fiction have such licence?
We are allowed to see endless theatrical deaths
But when the real deaths started on the Falklands
Government censors prevented us from seeing them
We were given the excuse of 'National Security'
By the lying shits who were interested only in saving their political skins
It didn't matter a fuck to them how many died
As long as their popularity ratings didn't suffer
For that reason alone we were shielded from the truth
While the real violence is kept from us
We are exposed to constant pantomimes of death and destruction
Those in power are rightly aware that if we had access to the real facts
We would cease to be simply passive observers
Media coverage of Viet Nam created massive dissent in the U.S.A
Thatcher's government was aware of that when, embarking on the Falkland charade
They refused press cards to anyone who they knew would not support their line
Those who did travel to the Falklands found their reports dramatically cut down
Meanwhile, at home, we were fed fabrications of Britain's 'glorious war'
The truth that is now filtering out paints a very different picture

It's often been said that truth is the first casualty of war
It is, but the same could be said of life
From birth we are threatened and beaten into submission
By family, church, school and state
From then on we're easy game for the powermongers
Like pathetic circus dogs we hunt out praise
Or, when our true nature finds its way to the surface
We hide in the darkness, our tails between our legs
At all costs we are prevented from realising our own potential
We are conditioned into being passive observers
If the ring-master offers war
We have been conditioned to passively accept it
War can only exist through passive acceptance
It is nothing but a demonstration of the weakness of human will

If the clown offered peace
We will have been conditioned to accept that too
But peace can not and will not be maintained through passive acceptance
Peace will require constant demonstrations of personal strength
Constant effort, constant hard work
Reappraisal, consideration and devotion
Which of those qualities were you taught in schoolroom?
Whereas war simply requires the masses as cannon-fodder
Peace requires individuals to realise their own potential
The odds are hopelessly against because the State deliberately destroys human will

Passive observers offer nothing but decay
The flowerbeds need weeding, the roses need cutting back before winter
Freed from sedation, released from bondage
People would demonstrate their own strength
But the powerful elite are aware of this
And already have tabs on those who they regard as subversives
It is easy for them to single out and intimidated us
And easier still for us simply not to bother

It is impossible to gauge the effect that demands for peace may be having
The authorities are skilled at concealing dissatisfaction
For so long people have been saying "No more war"
But for all those demands little has changed
Seeing that the Peace Movement was growing in strength
Thatcher appointed Heseltine as Minister of Defence
One specific part of his job is to discredit CND
Such is the nature of Conservative democraty

As pacifist we are too easily forced back into tokenism
Making hollow gestures against the wheels of the juggernaut
The line is delicate
The spaces have always been created by the gentle and caring
To be later filled by bullies and egotists
We can try to fill those spaces with the strength of our love
Gandhi called it Ahimsa. The Greenham Wowan call it the 'Politics of Whimsy'
But it doesn't end there, neither is it enough
Gandhi played a major role in liberating India from Britain rule
But conditions in India are still appaling for the ordinary people
Limiting Greenham Peace Camp to women only is a sensible political ploy
But if it is a demonstration of sexual exclusivity it is a sham
Aren't we seeking to destroy all forms of exclusivity?
Does our own oppression give us the right to oppress others?
Unless we are prepared to oppose all oppression
We stand guilty of direct contribution to it

The neo-fascist plunder our land
And we must resist them on every level
As outsiders we have few right with which to oppose them
But on our own, together, we seek them
They have their law and those who impose it
We only have ourselves and each other
They have their order and those who impose it
We only have ourselves and each other
It is easy to dismiss those who seek peace as dreamers
But isn't our whole culture built on past dreams?
It is essential that our dreams become a reality
Or there will cease to be one

Harrods boast that it can supply any whim that its wealthy clients might express
Well let them supply me an Exocet missile and a starving Third World child
And I'll tell them the politics of choice
Equality doesn't enter into the ghettos of wealth
Beneath the protective sheath of Thatcher's economy
The right, rich and privileged get even richer
And they, in turn, support her barbaric policies both at home and overseas
The Falklands war cost Britain over sixteen thousand million pounds - in whose pocket?

Throughout the world millions of people are employed making armaments
Don't they realise that it's ordinary people like themselves who'll suffer the effects of their filthy labour?

The wealthy obscene with their obscene wealth
Applaud the carnage from their grandstand
It's as if they were at Ascot laying their bets
Five to one on the Four Horsemen
They believe that money can buy them out of the responsibility
That they have for the world that they bleed dry
They are the true pornographers
The real stylists in human perversion
Rich educated tarts sit dumbly by
Watching their fortunes rise and fall
In the neatly pressed pin-striped trousers of the City
Debutante whores in rich men's castles

The ruling elite with their puppet figurehead
Queen Elizabeth the Second, Regina Virgina
Strut about on the million of bodies
That they have sacrificed to gain their position
Who are these leaders but those who have made violence pay?
Who are they but the inheritors of their ancestors greed and theft?
Their blood stained flags are rags to our future
Tattered remnant of our individual rights
These rulers are common murderers and thieves
But still we bow before them
For how long will the masses be so pathetically manipulated by God, Queen and Country?

For fucks sake where are we in all this?
We're given life yet we court death
For Christ's sake how long? How long, oh Lord, how long?
Still we lay prostrate before a stylised figure on a crucifix
As if the stone fool might be resurrected
We are expected to bargain our lives for his
And join him in the ugliness of perpetual Christian guilt
He hangs there as a remainder of our own subjugation
Let it be known that he alone is Christ
Those who dare emulate him shall suffer thus
Each settlement is spiked with that stupid image
Each conscience nailed to that diet of corruption

Military acts are bathed in those gory tales
Tired Marines, edgy to fuck and sleep, are blessed in his name
Pious virgins in desire kneel in worship before the myth
In anticipation of their own death, they await his coming
Sweet Jesus have mercy on me
Sweet Jesus, they share his agony
Sweet Jesus, they share his misery
Fuck his loaded deity

Over half the world's population is starving
Crucified by the greed of landowners
Helpless against the imbalance of priorities
Practiced by the major powers who, if they wanted to, could help
Every minute of the day millions upon million of pounds
Are spent on the machinery of war
If only a half of that was spent on the machinery of peace
There would be no more starvation on this planet
Yet governments pay no heed to the cries of suffering
They perhaps make token gestures to appease their consciences
But no real improvements are made
Because to ensure control the superpowers need to maintain the imbalance
Natives are slaughtered in their homelands
By governments seeking out new possessions
Most of the wealth of the so called developed nations
Has been gained at the expense of the Third World
From whom natural resources, both mineral and human
Have been unscrupulously exploited
Peoples' pride and dignity is burnt in Napalm
And hand-held flame-throwers
The poor and underprivileged are raped and tormented
By leaders who use their power not to assist, but to oppress
At the wave of a gloved hand
These people can, and do
Send young men to their death
But not before others too have fallen from their bayonets and guns
Such armies are invariably called 'peace keeping forces'
The hypocrisy is as appalling as it is obvious
The wealthy, educated, privileged and secure
Make the lives of those less fortunate a complete misery
Million upon millions of people are dying from malnutrition
Because, to stabilise their economies, governments destroy food rather than giving it to the needy

"Let them eat cake" said Marie Antoinette
As she wiped the calf's blood from her lips

"Proud to be British" said Margaret Thatcher
As she wiped the Falkland's blood from her hands

The ruling elite have no concept of what it is to suffer want
Yet it is they who are directly responsible
In a world where there are people who can't afford a crust of bread
These arrogant scabs drive around in Bentleys and Rolls Royces
Perhaps it amuses them to rub shit into the faces of the poor
But there'll come a time when such overt displays of wealth
Will not be tolerated by the people in the street
In a sane society wealth and possession would not be an asset

A few years ago a politician was on the radio
Saying that no one in the UK suffered from want
Next day I saw an old man pleading for a handful of coal
His wife was dying of cold and he was penniless
Maybe in the morning, as the politician sipped breakfast tea
She lay cold and dead before the empty grate
Every year thousand of people die of hypothermia
Too hungry, too cold, too poor to stay alive

At times of national crisis it's always the poor who suffer
"Back Britain" we're told
As the rich get richer and the poor get poorer
At times of international crisis it's the same story
"Back Britain" we're told
As the rich get richer and the poor get killed
In the event of a nuclear crisis
The rich will retreat to private bunkers with their wealth and possessions

The injustice of inequality is sanctioned by the church
With its tradition of finance from the gentry
The church has always been obliged
To ensure that its flock remains servile
"Repent ye sinners or be devoured in the flames of hell."
Those very same flames that devoured their enemies in countless religious wars

So often the church has marched hand in hand with the military
Casting its blessings upon the writhing bodies of the battlefield
Each stab of bayonet is God's word
Each crash of steel is God's word
Each torn limb and splash of blood is God's word
For he so loved the world he gave our only begotten sons