eleventh

DON’T PUSH ME ‘ROUND

Our morals are anemic

And gains more lost and found

A hog-wild retrogression

What’s happened to this town?

Don’t push me ‘round

My heart’s not in this place

Don’t try to push me ‘round

Escheat age ‘Uber Alles’

Militias underground

Democracy’s one-sided

What’s happened to this town?

Don’t push me ‘round

I can’t see through this maze

Don’t try to push me ‘round

This castigated thiefdom

Our ankles tied and bound

A real forbidden city

What’s happened to this town?

Don’t push me ‘round

Get out of my face

Don’t try to push me ‘round

OUT OF CONTROL

The growth of our cities

Is rotting at the core

The middle class in suburbs

Move out to ignore

No means of escape

Without a tax base

You’re just another driver

In the rat race

Out of control

We’re squinting at the future

Hoping all will go away

Are we fueling fire

Bred by ignorance and hate

Politicians promise to find a better way

Nothing’s solved overnight so we wait another day

Out of control

Overpopulation has got us in a bind

Forests and the animals running out of time

Cancer, HIV, TB

Let’s thin out the herd

Recalling that a phoenix

Is just a well-cooked bird

Out of control

Out of control!!!

MONEY TALKS

We’re sending out mixed signals

The state is talking tough

Multilateral tariffs

China smells a bluff

Human rights conditions

Dissidents rot in jail

We’d rather keep the business

Democracy can fail

Money talks, freedom walks

Congress balks, who’s at fault?

Money talks, justice walks

Proudly then, our flag unfurled

Across bureaucracies

Stocking junk at Wally World

Design socks and tees

The heroes of Tiananmen

Who slave with rats and fleas

For quoting Thomas Jefferson

“Too bad he weren’t Chinese”

Money talks, freedom walks

Congress balks, who’s at fault?

Money talks, justice walks

I'VE HAD ENOUGH

Welfare for the affluent

Cutbacks for the poor

Profit to the rich

Outweigh the public good

The rights of private wealth

Are shaping public policy

Special interest power

Is hijacking the government

I’ve had enough!

I’m so fed up!

I’ve had enough!

Treasury fears inflation

Expansion and modernization

Triggers talk of devaluation

Reflect the higher cost to the nation

Prices fall, continued woes

“That’s the way the industry goes!

Dollar declines against the peso!”

Inventories based on say-so

I’ve had enough!

I’m so fed up!

I’ve had enough!

EMERGENCY

Partisan politicians

Don’t want to be at fault

Deregulating banks

And cleaning out the vaults

The new administration

Has everyone condemned

The opposition party

Will not stand up to them

Finger-pointers take their shots at you

Ardent enemies, grand and picayune

Stark realities, no one is immune

Slam the system ‘till you’re black and blue

Our tax base has gone bust

Because we’re overlending

Bankruptcy court accounts

Increase taxpayer’s spending

The thrifts are all used up

And interest rates are climbing

Misappropriated millions

What are they imbibing?

Finger-pointers take their shots at you

Ardent enemies, grand and picayune

Stark realities, no one is immune

Slam the system ‘till you’re black and blue

DIRTY POLITICS

The price of oil is soaring

Domestic crude is down

Beleaguered legislature

Stands on shaky ground

The president’s opposed

To granting tax incentive

Because companies import

Foreign oil independence

Slush fund antics, corporation tricks

Skeletons in the closet

Dirty politics

A symbol of the heart

A formal club of swine

Inside track to obscene wealth

“Our friends are doing fine!”

A gathering, a quickening

A stern, deceptive code

Local hero, fiend and foe

Fear it might explode

Slush fund antics, corporation tricks

Skeletons in the closet

Dirty politics

NO COMPROMISE

Our latest foreign policy

Disparate criticism

Antipodal opinions

Intervention, isolation

Stay out, hang tough

Cacophony of cries

Air strikes, trade sanctions

We’re pressed on several sides

No compromise

There’s words and blood spilled daily

The U.N. fights in vain

Civilians are the victims

And no one takes the blame

Another failed ceasefire

It’s just a dead-end game

Each side claims a victory

The peace process is strained

No compromise

DROP THE BOMB

Saddam’s war of attrition

Chain gang proliferation

Intervention by default

Foreign policy by debacle

Superpower hegemony

Imperialist treachery

Tom and Jerry diplomacy

Over nuclear weaponry

Everyone’s got their hand on the gun

Blow your neighbor to kingdom come

All they want to do is drop the bomb

Handy third world territory

Can contain this hairy story

World’s policeman might get caught

Just another terrornaut

NATO locked in acrimony

Warsaw packers smell a phony

Shun the common people’s plea

Dismantle nuclear weaponry

Everyone’s got their hand on the gun

Blow your neighbor to kingdom come

All they want to do is drop the bomb

ARMAGEDDON

The talks are on the table

Too much quid pro quo

We’re dangling a carrot

Before a stranglehold

A temporary freeze

Of Kim’s nuclear program

Doesn’t mean a thing

To someone who won’t back down

Standoff, standoff, standoff, standoff

Armageddon!

Standing on the precipice

The future is in doubt

Who to trust, who to fear

Our leaders have no clout

A Macabean effort

With troglodytes in tow

Their cheeks will all be rosy with

A radioactive glow

Standoff, standoff, standoff, standoff

Armageddon!

FORBIDDEN EXISTENCE

The Atlantic Alliance

Divides the East and West

Russian belliscocity

Being put to the test

The Visigoth nations

Refused NATO admissions

Hawks and doves, hard-liners

Jockey for position

Can’t stay away from your forbidden existence

The East protects their markets

Along the Pacific Rim

The high seas are a target

A trophallaxic limb

The Asian empires in repose

Awaiting leader’s whim

Monopoly monarchy

Make grand illusions dim

Can’t stay away from your forbidden existence

Any tel encephalon

Performing plosive riffs

People, places, times, events

Less operatic gifts

Specifics are unstated

A cold, auspicious view

Operations are berated

The game begins anew

Can’t stay away from your forbidden existence

YESTERDAY'S YOUTH

The young have no heroes, authority lacks their trust

The crimes of our leaders are being passed to us

The Baby Boomer era up to Generation X

All we’re procreating is Generation Next

We’re lacking education ‘cause no one reads the words

Ad deceptions, misinformation, noting being heard

Yesterday’s youth, everywhere I go

Yesterday’s youth, on the radio

Yesterday’s youth, on the TV

Yesterday’s youth, killing me

A gang related shoot-out left sixteen people dead

The law enforcement profile is better left unread

We’ll privatize the prisons and downsize public works

Oh leaders of tomorrow from toxic shadows lurk

We’re lacking real direction, an ideologic slope

Our so-called freedom is infringed a vacuum of hope

Yesterday’s youth, on with the show

Yesterday’s youth, make more dough

Yesterday’s youth, land of the free

Yesterday’s youth, snubbing me

What’s it going to be then, ay? Olympic Sega team

A mall-forsaken rocky way? A desecrated dream

A magic combination, trading tit for tat

Instead of conflagration, “Ya’ll want fries with that?”

We’re acting for the future, politically correct

A world for me and you, sir, a serviceable wreck

Yesterday’s youth, friend or foe?

Yesterday’s youth, Wade vs. Roe

Yesterday’s youth, don’t you see?

Yesterday’s youth, freeing me

ALONE IN A CROWD

Forced gregarious in anxious climate

We’re others rebelled against a threat

Have dissatisfaction and complacency

Laid waste to the unusual occurrence?

But to rest on random benevolence

That will never be

Out of place, alone in a crowd

In as much as negativity

A barrier to sense anxiety

And where skewed priorities

Neglect responsibility

Flush with victory

Divided by all

Elite ascendancy

Out of place, alone in the crowd

All stumbling words are dumb

Oi, hear my philosophy

Babylon to kingdom come

I’m the man I want to be

Galvanized hatred clarifies

I play my music loud

Out of place, alone in the crowd

JOHNNY B. RUDE

Down west in swinging London, park in Finsbury

A darker decade that the Tory’s ever see

Gobbed an Irish boy out of King’s Road free

Add Shepherd’s bush a recipe for anarchy

He never learned to read and write too well

He couldn’t play guitar, but he rocked like hell

Go, go... go, Johnny go...

Go, go... go, Johnny go... Johnny B. Rude!

Steps from “Sex” in Roebuck Pub, “Now here’s the plan

You will be the singer in a punk rock band.”

The bloody Empire’s sinking into quick, quicksand

C.S.A.D to Ravensborne and Q.E.C, then banned

“The foulest gang of rotters that you’d ever seen

They wrecked our P.A. and insulted the Queen!”

Go, go... go, Johnny go...

Go, go... go, Johnny go... Johnny B. Rude!

From One-oh-One to Marquee Club to Nth Degree

The Pistols rocked, McLaren-hyped publicity

Bromley contingent, clutch of fans for all to see

Bill Grundy’s show outraged polite society

They didn’t really look at all like New York Dolls

But that green-haired bloke has some kinda balls!

Go, go... go, Johnny go...

Go, go... go, Johnny go... Johnny B. Rude!

RECORDED 22 MARCH 1997 - RELEASED 2 NOVEMBER 1999