A song lyric that only *now* really registers

[bunkerbuster1]

...from an 18-year-old Paul Weller, in 1977.

From the Jam's first album, song entitled "Art School."

and I quote :


"Who makes the rules that make people select?
Who is to judge that your ways are correct?
The 'media-as-watchdog' is ABSOLUTE SHIT
The TV's telling you what to think..."


When I first heard it (when I, too, was 18, at the time) it just sounded like a pointless rant.

Man, oh man, how wrong I was, and how right he was.

[Vickers]

1. Aw man, I LOVE the Jam!

How about THIS for a lyric...like it was written for DU!

"We talk and talk until my head explodes
I turn on the news and my body froze
The braying sheep on my TV screen
Make this boy shout, make this boy scream!
Going underground, I'm going underground!"

[TexasBushwhacker]

2. Not The Jam, but how about these lyrics

Flat top intervention
Bringing home the new invention
See it there in pieces on the ground
A television war between the cynics and the saints
Flip the dial and that's whose side you're on
Sleeping on the white house lawn ain't never changed a thing
Look at all the washed out hippie dreams

And it's falling all around us
Is this some kind of joke they're trying to pull on us?
Falling all around us
I'll turn my head off for a while

Tabloid generation's lost
Choking on it's fear
Used to be that's all we had to fear
conscience keeps us quiet while the crooked love to speak
There's knowledge wrapped in blankets on the streets
A visionary coward says that anger can be power
As long as there's a victim on tv

And it's falling all around us
Is this some kind of joke they're trying to pull on us
Falling all around us
I'll turn my head off for a while

And my dirty dreams all come alive
On my TV screen
And assassination plots
Show me what I haven't got
Show me what I love and who I'm supposed to be
Show me everything I need
Show it all to me

And it's falling all around us
Is this some kind of joke they're trying to pull on us?
Falling all around us
I'll turn my head off for a while

[bunkerbuster1]

4. good stuff. Source? n/m

[TexasBushwhacker]

6. Believe it or not ....

The Goo Goo Dolls. The song is Flat Top and it's on their CD "A Boy Named Goo".

[bunkerbuster1]

3. You'll see kidney machines replaced by

...rockets and guns
and the public gets what the public wants
but I don't want what this society's got
I'm going undeground
Well let the brass bands play and feet start to pound.

[henslee]

5. Those first 3 lps..whew. First time I saw them was at Perkins Palace, CA

[bunkerbuster1]

7. Like you say.

Although I loved Setting Sons and Sound Affects as well.

First time for me was at CBGB's Second Avenue Theater, in NYC.

[henslee]

9. Nice. Just walked by CBGB las night. A whole new crop of dirtbags!

[kiki]

8. A bit more poetic, but...

...from O Superman, by Laurie Anderson:

'Cause when love is gone, there's always justice.
And when justive is gone, there's always force.
And when force is gone, there's always Mom. Hi Mom!

So hold me, Mom, in your long arms. So hold me,
Mom, in your long arms.
In your automatic arms. Your electronic arms.
In your arms.
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms.
Your petrochemical arms. Your military arms.
In your electronic arms.

This was written over 20 years ago. "Electronic arms"... she didn't know the half of it...

[seemslikeadream]

10. No Man Can Find The War

Photographs of guns and flame
Scarlet skull and distant game
Bayonet and jungle grin
Nightmares dreamed by bleeding men
Lookouts tremble on the shore
But no man can find the war

Tape recorders echo scream
Orders fly like bullet stream
Drums and cannons laugh aloud
Whistles come from ashen shroud
Leaders damn the world and roar
But no man can find the war

Is the war across the sea?
Is the war behind the sky?
Have you each and all gone blind:
Is the war inside your mind?
Humans weep at human death
All the talkers lose their breath
Movies paint a chaos tale
Singers see and poets wail
All the world knows the score
But no man can find the war

Tim Buckley

[Ezlivin]

11. Artists are way ahead of the other boys and girls

If you look at history, it seems that artists are raising issues before most people are even aware of them.

The lyrics that came to mind for me were from "Us and Them" by Pink Floyd:

Us and them
and after all we're only ordinary men
me and you
God only knows it's not what we would choose to do
forward he cried from the rear
and the front rank died
and the General sat, and the lines on the map
moved from side to side

Black and blue
and who knows which is which and who is who
up and down
and in the end it's only round and round and round
haven't you heard it's a battle of words
the poster bearer cried
listen, son, said the man with the gun
there's room for you inside

Down and out
it can't be helped but there's a lot of it about
with, without
and who'll deny it's what the fighting's all about
out of the way, it's a busy day
I've got things on my mind
for want of the price of tea and a slice
the old man died

[kiki]

12. Well I know

it seems like that sometimes... but I think all it really means is that things never change...

[mbhin]

13. Heard this one?

Country music haters beware - but give it a listen anyway.

http://www.takinmycountryback.com/

[Artemis Bunyon]

14. Generals gathered in their masses / Just like witches at black masses...

Evil minds that plot destruction,
sorcerers of death's construction.
In the fields the bodies burning,
as the war machine keeps turning.
Death and hatred to mankind,
poisoning their brainwashed minds.
Oh lord, yeah!

Politicians hide themselves away.
They only started the war.
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor, yeah.

Time will tell on their power minds,
making war just for fun.
Treating people just like pawns in chess,
wait till their judgement day comes, yeah.

Now in darkness world stops turning,
ashes where the bodies burning.
No more War Pigs have the power,
Hand of God has struck the hour.
Day of judgement, God is calling,
on their knees the war pigs crawling.
Begging mercies for their sins,
Satan, laughing, spreads his wings.
Oh lord, yeah!


That one really registers with me these days.

Only GWB could make Ozzy Osbourne sound like an Old Testament prophet.