Sold Down The River

(Sold down the river)

Youth picks over stones like crows
Urban black leg funeral clothes
Passing out the videos
Pounding beat the Mersey

(Sold down the river)

I support the Reds and I've got the blues
Drink too much and I choose to snooze
Dream of boxing kangaroos
Pounding beat the Mersey

(Sold down the river)

Why don't you kill me, kill me?
Stop putting me down
Why don't you kill me, kill me?
Stop putting me down

(Sold down the river)

I view the city from afar
A skeletal burnt out motor car
Wave goodbye for America
Pounding beat the Mersey

(Sold down the river)

Don't you know. They've shut down all the factories in Knotty Ash The captains of industry, all them Presidents of Cash, they say that our labour costs less in Bangladesh. Ah well, I'll marmalise 'em I tell you. I'll marmalise 'em.

Why don't you kill me, kill me?
Stop putting me down
Why don't you kill me, kill me?
Stop putting me down

(Sold down the river)

King Car

It pulled you out of the slump
It fed you after the war
Now here's oil for the sump
Of your twentieth century motorcar

It's got those wings like a fish
It’s got a tail like a bird
It’s everything that you'd wish for?
Twentieth century motorcar

KING CAR

Is it everything that you want?
Is it everything that you feel?
Do you real1y want to undress her?
Twentieth century automobile.

KING CAR

And this fantastic, comfortable
Purring machine erupts into
Discord, erupts into violence
And while the mind searches for
What went wrong. The body does what it
Must do to survive

Demon Drink

I’m done with dancing
I’m done with singing
I think I'll sink into the demon drink
And sit with the devil on the brink
And make fiery breath with the demon drink
Demon drink
I will drink the demon drink.

I'd love to laze a full twelve days
And perfect my wicked ways
But if there's time to think
I sink into the arms of the demon drink

Demon drink
The demon drink
I will drink the demon drink now

What shall we do now?
What shall we do?
Let's sit and stew in the devil's brew now
Demon drink
The demon drink
We will drink the demon drink

Johnny, The Perfect Son

Down the street of the murderous heart
Past the house of the smiling face
Walked Johnny - the perfect son
Oh Johnny - Johnny the good man

He just got back from corruption town
His eyeballs pulsed like a Rock 'n' Roll drum
There goes Johnny - Johnny the straight talking man
Oh Johnny - Johnny worn and Johnny tire

They say Johnny's heart burst
They say he fell dead upon his face
He'd had too much of tears and hate
Johnny was a good man
Oh Johnny
He couldn't say no to too much, too late

Torches of Liberty

Oh, I'm impressed With the train's chromium flesh
You sit there with that grin on your face
Where's the respect in it?
My child's name is ruin
And there's one more thing
You father was a very, verybig mistake

Torches of Liberty
Flashed a thousand miles from me
Snapping, flashing eyes you see
What the hell

You've got your passports to security
And there's one more thing
Here's a little song from me
Your father was a big mistake
Mom and Dad they tell me
That their days were the best
It's a crazy time we're living through
But no more than all the rest

Torches of Liberty
Flashed a thousand miles from me
Snapping, flashing eyes you see
What the hell

Don't put your faith in him above
In Beirut, or Liverpool Berlin or Tehran
If you're not asking for the
Whole wide world what are you asking for?
Some of what you've got
A mob is just some people
Fed up with their lot
And when people feel the thumb press down
They turn into a mob

Torches of Liberty
Flashed a thousand miles from me
Snapping, flashing eyes you see
What the hell

Don't put your faith in him above
I'm sleepwalking, just sleepwalking
Sleeping on the job
Come and ride out on this nightmare
Going to ride, gonna ride, gonna ride, ride, ride
Come and let down your hair

And the drains flood the streets
All round it's lake Michegan style

Come on, All you thinking men
Come on, All you thinking women too
In this crazy world of ours there must be something you can do

Torches of Liberty
Flashed a thousand miles from me
Snapping, flashing eyes you see
What the hell

Atom Drum Bop

Welcome to district no. 8
Land of the American helpers
The security needs of the United States
Have written the great modern fiction
This is the jargon of playground brawl
Who is the toughest?
American tests and Soviet tests
The odd computer reads out death
AS new missiles come in generations
New models to be sold like cars
A bomb, H bomb, Minutemen
The names get more attractive
Welcome to the land of the Tomahawks
Missiles for American cowboys
Where our decisions are made by N.A.T.O.
The press call it British opinion
See the reports on the television
The decisions are already made
The a voice is the voice of the expert
Oh Queen Mother smile again
Welcome to the land of the mutants
Radiation and destruction

When it comes to the C.R.U.N.C.H.
Will you dance? Will you dance?
When it come to the C.R.U.N.C.H.
Will you dance? Will you dance?
Will you dance to the atom drum bop?

When it come to the crunch
The rich are in their shelters
Welcome to the land of the dissidents
With a 15 minute warning
To construct a sandbag shelter
No time, no point to crawl inside
When it comes to the crunch
It'll all be spelt out for us
Welcome to the land of disregard
Apocalypse for breakfast
This is the E.N.D. radio

Death of The European

He's got a snapshot
Flash-light at Checkpoint Charlie
Among the searchlights
A balloon idea floats from his brain
The bubble bursts on his face

DEATH OF THE EUROPEAN

He's in the back seat
Multiplication sex drive
The receiver
He's in credit, he's alive
Now he is happy. He's alive

DEATH OF THE EUROPEAN

He is the dead-beat walkman
Of Rock and Roll on the frontier
Listen out for something
American Forces Radio
He's on the late, late Alimony show

DEATH OF THE EUROPEAN
And now here's twelve year old Tracy With her poem about George Washington:
George Washington was the first great American President
And we honour him
And respect him
And we follow in the true American way

DEATH OF THE EUROPEAN

He rides the lightening
His snoring drowns the thunder
Finds his dreams frightening
He won't go under he's alive
Wake up tomorrow he'll be fine

DEATH OF THE EUROPEAN

Who am I working for?
I don't know which one to think
Who am I working for these days?

Coals To Newcastle

Mother she was a school cook
Father he drove a pick-up truck
This country, it made my family
The Tories they made redundancy

They gave us poor clothes for bad weather
Never thought we'd see the like again ever
Like taking coal
Like taking coal to Newcastle

Let's go back many years from now
Back to the year of 1844
As the Redskins say the miners are getting organised
Same story worker against worker

They gave us poor clothes for bad weather
Never thought we'd see the like again aver

Like taking coal
Like taking coal to Newcastle

The Ship That Died Of Shame

(The death of Socrates' The death of Socrates!)

This, this is the ship the ship that died of shame
with a broken heart ship that died of shame
Out on the sea of life, calls of sad despair to Old Father Time
If, is you is or is you ain't?
Taste the fruits of paradise on a desert isle is the ship of shame
I, I can't bear to be out in the cold air with my legs all stiff I've been thinking all day
Call, call out a name, spray paint a subway train in the dead of night - don't be looking at me
We'll talk of mortal sin and all the fun you‘ve had
I've been put down on the ship of shame
Give, give my your hat, give me your coat, I'm blinking and I’m blind on the ship of shame

Now are you writing now, no you're not for sure my ears are swollen up on the ship of shame

Oh the whiskey bottle splattered
Past the bar tenders head
Smashing in a mass of glass and gin
A man with the stout froth
All around his mouth
Dropped down the trap door
Because he wasn't let in

Broken bones and snakes walked about the city face
black hair was combed straight on the ship of shame

World By Storm

I'll shake my hands across the seven seas
I'll summon up some strange things to see
And in the airport lounge
Guerilla war is getting down
In the hearts of the passing crowd
Fruits of death are passed around

And in the canyons of N.Y.
F ire power in the jungle
Mine is the gold, Park Avenue!
No one is innocent
In the world by storm

A storm is raging in every placid pool
And the words of poetry they break up every line
And the singer's voice
Is the grunt of an animal?
In the hearts of the passing crowd
Fruits of death are passed a around

I'd I like to teach the world to sing
But it taught me instead
I wrote this wing one day
On a Jumbo Jet
Screaming electricity
Sing it into my Black Box
In the hearts of the passing crowd
Fruits of death are passed around