Tears of Rage

" A Free Thinker"

You don't have your own
You're livin' thru others
Toss and turn at night
but you play it demure
and whats more
you don't think you've got the right
to be a free thinker
You could give yourself the right
You could shine your special light


Are you a consumer
A mere number
on a supermarket line?
wear a perfect mask
and never show your feelings
maybe you can make the time
To be a free thinker
You could find your own style
You may feel more alive

Do you ever wonder
Can we save our planet
and where will it go in time?
White hawk's* destroy
And healer's send joy
back to the starry nite line
for a free thinker
with some individuality
you may find you feel more free

* This word is being used in it's traditional sense of war consciousness and not in reference to the spirit of the soaring bird.

Running For My Life

Riding the night train, New York, to LA,
Gonna go and get me some sunshine.
Clipping along t'ward the Colorado Rockies,
Leaving you behind me.

There's a cold icy wind blowing like a demon
Off Lake Michigan.
I'm going where the weather is warm and the heat off.

You burned me out and you did me in,
You beat me at the game
I can not win.

I'm going where the pace is slower,
The stakes are lower.
I'm running for my life.

Tomorrow I'll wake up without you.
I'll curl my hair, and listen to my heart.
I don't want to hear a word about you,
I'll do what I care to do,
I'll do what I dare to do.
I'm running for my life.

I can see the switch man out in the freight yard,
Waving his lights at my train.
Red fir stopping my heart from beating,
Green for driving me insane.
And the rain is pouring,
And the wheels are rolling past that Nevada line
I'm going where the weather is hot,
And you are not.

I played the fool I believed your lies,
I danced till I was nearly paralyzed
I'm gone and going.
I'm running for my life

Tomorrow I'll wake up without you,
I'll get a room with windows on the sea
I'll do all the things I could never do,
You never will find me here
Not a thing to remind me here.
I'm running for my life

Sky's getting bright with California sunrise,
Shining its light on my train
Drying my tears soothing my fears,
Taking away my old pain.
And the engine's rockin' and the wheels are talkin'
About the tracks ahead,
I'm going where the world is new and the past is dead.
You brought me low and you got me high
I'm leaving you with my bridges burning,
There's no returning.

I'm running for my life
I'm running for me life

The Last Rites of Spring (Coil Live Four)

We are children
We are children
We are children
We are children of the dark sun
We are children
We are children
We are children of the black sun

We are children
We are children of the black sun
We are born
We are born
We are born under a black sun
We are children
We are children

And William Burroughs is hallucinating in space
And William Burroughs is hallucinating in space

Are we going in space?
Are we going in space?

And William Burroughs is hallucinating in space
The animal's saliva will survive
And the animal's saliva will survive
And the animal's saliva will survive
And the animal's saliva will survive
And as a human race
We are going deranged
We can be arranged
And the animal's saliva will survive

The saliva will survive
And the animal's saliva will survive
Saliva will survive
And the animal's saliva will survive (repeated)
And William Burroughs is hallucinating in space
And the animal's saliva will survive
And the animal's saliva will survive
And the animal's saliva will survive

And the spiral ??? will survive
...???...

And William Burroughs is hallucinating in space
And William Burroughs is hallucinating in space

7 O'Clock News/Silent Night

This is the early evening edition of the news.

The recent fight in the House of Representatives was over the open housing section of the Civil Rights Bill. Brought traditional enemies together but left the defenders of the measure without the votes of their strongest supporters. President Johnson originally proposed an outright ban covering discrimination by everyone for every type of housing but it had no chance from the start and everyone in Congress knew it. A compromise was painfully worked out in the House Judiciary Committee. In Los Angeles today comedian Lenny Bruce died of what was believed to be an overdose of narcotics. Bruce was 42 years old.

Dr. Martin Luther King says he does not intend to cancel plans for an open housing march Sunday in the Chicago suburb of Cicero. Cook County Sheriff Richard Ogleby asked King to call off the march and the police in Cicero said they would ask the National Guard to be called out if it is held. King, now in Atlanta, Georgia, plans to return to Chicago Tuesday.

In Chicago, Richard Speck, accused murderer of nine student nurses, was brought before a grand jury today for indictment. The nurses were found stabbed and strangled in their Chicago apartment. In Washington the atmosphere was tense today as a special subcommittee of the House Committee on Un-American Activities continued its probe into anti-Viet Nam war protests. Demonstrators were forcibly evicted from the hearings when they began chanting anti-war slogans. Former Vice-President Richard Nixon says that unless there is a substantial increase in the present war effort in Viet Nam, the U.S. should look forward to five more years of war. In a speech before the Convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in New York, Nixon also said opposition to the war in this country is the greatest single weapon working against the U.S.

That's the 7 o'clock edition of the news, good night.

Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon virgin mother and child
Holy infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace

Within You Without You

We were talking - about the space between us all
And the people - who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion
Never glimpse the truth - then it's far too late - when they pass away.
We were talking - about the love we could all share - when we find it
To try our best to hold it there - with our love
With our love - we could save the world - if they only knew.
Try to realize it's all within yourself
No-one else can make you change
And to see you're really only very small,
And life flows on within you and without you.
We were talking - about the love that's gone so cold and the people,
Who gain the world and lose their soul -
They don't know - they can't see - are you one of them?
When you've seen beyond yourself -
Then you may find peace of mind, is waiting there -
And the time will come when you see we're all one,
And life flows on within you and without you.

Lucy's Door


When twilight rivals the closing day
My thoughts go wandering far away,
When I gaze at the sky above
My thoughts return to the one I love
So take me, take me, 'cause I'm feeling lonely
Take me back to Lucy's door
But don't let her mother know

Her mother tell her get steady man
A man of letters from wealthy clan
And when I call at Lucy's door
Her mother tell me "Don't come no more"
So take me, take me, 'cause I'm feeling lonely
Take me back to Lucy's door
But don't let her mother know

But I love the sea and I love the sweat
It's an honest wage an' I have respect
For how much more can there be in life
Than happy children and loving wife
So take me, take me, 'cause I'm feeling lonely
Take me back to Lucy's door
But don't let her mother know

Fools Like You
Blue Rodeo

So good at doing
What you don't do
Just trying to protect yourself
And other fools like you
So well practised
In your deceit
Behind the high walls of stupidity
Your endless conceit
Behind the locked door
The sleeping dog you beat
I hope I see the day
She satisfies her teeth

Give back to the native
Their treaty land
What you preach you preach for others
Why don't you practice that firsthand

I just don't understand
This world of mine
I must be out of touch
Or out of my mind
And will the profits of destruction
Forever make your eyes blind
Do you bow to the corporations
'Cause they pay their bills on time

God bless Elijah
With the feather in his hand
Stop stealing the Indian land
Stop stealing the Indian land
Stop stealing the Indian land

(What's So Funny 'Bout)Peace, Love And Understanding
Nick Lowe

As I walk through
This wicked world
Searchin' for light in the darkness of insanity.

I ask myself
Is all hope lost?
Is there only pain and hatred, and misery?

And each time I feel like this inside,
There's one thing I wanna know:
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?

And as I walked on
Through troubled times
My spirit gets so downhearted sometimes
So where are the strong
And who are the trusted?
And where is the harmony?
Sweet harmony.

'Cause each time I feel it slippin' away, just makes me wanna cry.
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?


So where are the strong?
And who are the trusted?
And where is the harmony?
Sweet harmony.

'Cause each time I feel it slippin' away, just makes me wanna cry.
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?

I once hired a man to move trash for me. No way he could remember the 60s. But his father did. I was listening to the oldies station one day when he screwed up his face at the music. "All I can think is 'peace and love.'" He went off an took a swig from a hip flask, like Adrian's brother in Rocky. He remained surly until I quit listening.
Another time the same guy spoke of a desire to murder abortion doctors. I hope in the succeeding years he got help or something.

edgar, you have gotta be one of my favorite people ever.

A rather long (sorry for the length, feel free to scroll right on past it), rather new song, rather hip-hop-ish song. Actually, this is only the middle part of the song:

Release, Pt.2.

Inner breathlessness, outer restlessness
By the time I caught up to freedom I was out of breath
Grandma asked me what I'm running for
I guess I'm out for the same thing the sun is sunning for
What mothers birth their youngens for
And some say Jesus coming for
For all I know the earth is spinning slow
Suns at half mast 'cause masses ain't aglow
On bended knee, prostrate before an altered tree
I've made the forest suit me
Tables and chairs
Papers and prayers
Matter versus spirit
A metal ladder
A wooden cross
A plastic bottle of water
A mandala encased in glass
A spirit encased in flesh
Sound from shaped hollows
The thickest of mucus released from heightened passion
A man that cries in his sleep
A truth that has gone out of fashion
A mode of expression
A paint splattered wall
A carton of cigarettes
A bouquet of corpses
A dying forest
A nurtured garden
A privatized prison
A candle with a broken wick
A puddle that reflects the sun
A piece of paper with my name on it
I'm surrounded
I surrender
All
All that I am I have been
All I have been has been a long time coming
I am becoming all that I am
The spittle that surrounds the mouth-piece of the flute
Unheard, yet felt
A gathered wetness
A quiet moisture
Sound trapped in a bubble
Released into wind
Wind fellows and land merchants
We are history's detergent
Water soluble, light particles, articles of cleansing breath
Articles amending death
These words are not tools of communication
They are shards of metal
Dropped from eight story windows
They are waterfalls and gas leaks
Aged thoughts rolled in tobacco leaf
The tools of a trade
Barbers barred, barred of barters
Catch phrases and misunderstandings
But they are not what I feel when I am alone
Surrounded by everything and nothing
And there isn't a word or phrase to be caught
A verse to be recited
A man to de-fill my being in those moments
I am blankness, the contained center of an "O"
The pyramidic containment of an "A"
I stand in the middle of all that I have learned
All that I have memorized
All that I've known by heart
Unable to reach any of it
There is no sadness
There is no bliss
It is a forgotten memory
A memorable escape route that only is found by not looking
There, in the spine of the dictionary the words are worthless
They are a mere weight pressing against my thoughtlessness
But then, who else can speak of thoughtlessness with such confidence
Who else has learned to sling these ancient ideas
like dead rats held by their tails
so as not to infect this newly oiled skin
I can think of nothing heavier than an airplane
I can think of no greater conglomerate of steel and metal
I can think of nothing less likely to fly
There are no wings more weighted
I too have felt a heaviness
The stare of man guessing at my being
Yes I am homeless
A homeless man making offerings to the after-future
Sculpting rubber tree forests out of worn tires and shoe soles
A nation unified in exhale
A cloud of smoke
A native pipe ceremony
All the gathered cigarette butts piled in heaps
Snow covered mountains
Lipsticks smeared and shriveled
Offerings to an afterworld
Tattoo guns and plastic wrappers
Broken zippers and dead eyed dolls
It's all overwhelming me, oak and elming me
I have seeded a forest of myself
Little books from tall trees
It matters not what this paper be made of
Give me notebooks made of human flesh
Dried on steel hooks and nooses
Make uses of use, uses of us
It's all overwhelming me, oak and elming me
I have seeded a forest of myself
Little books from tall trees
On bended knee
Prostrate before an altered tree
I've made the forest suit me
Tables and chairs
Papers and prayers
Matter vs. spirit, through meditation
I program my heart to beat breakbeats and hum basslines on exhalation

Smog
You have suddenly become one of my favorite people also. I like the song you posted (the words, never heard it).
Just because my heart is wrapped up in the music of the past for the most don't mean I can't recognize talent from the young. The sound patterns are alien to my own tempo, but there are thousands of inspired songs out there today.

And it is some strange goal of mine to somehow hear them all...

Anyway, that song was by Blackalicious featuring Saul Williams, and the entire song, pts.1-3, is 9.5 minutes of some of the best current music there is.

I know my fair deal of older songs, but I must admit that I am of the "younger" generation. Perhaps I'll post some more newer stuff. I like the theme of this thread, I like finding themed music, and I like music. A wonderful thing, I suppose, although of course the reasons for this thread are the complete opposite of wonderful. Funny how that happens sometimes, I guess.

There is only one Godspeed You! Black Emperor song with lyrics from the 4 or 5 albums they've recorded, but they chose some great lyrics to use:

"The Dead Flag Blues"

The car's on fire and there's no driver at the wheel
And the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides
And a dark wind blows
The government is corrupt
And we're on so many drugs
With the radio on and the curtains drawn

We're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine
And the machine is bleeding to death

The sun has fallen down
And the billboards are all leering
And the flags are all dead at the top of their poles

It went like this

The buildings tumbled in on themselves
Mothers clutching babies picked through the rubble and pulled out their hair

The skyline was beautiful on fire
All twisted metal stretching upwards
Everything washed in a thin orange haze

I said, "Kiss me, you're beautiful..
These are truly the last days"

You grabbed my hand and we fell into it
Like a daydream or a fever

We woke up one morning and fell a little further down
For sure it's the valley of death

I open up my wallet
And it's full of blood

Strong writing.

Ok, one more for now, although I'm sure that instead of being productive later I will just think of more songs.

Anyway, this band, Desaparecidos, could be considered "emo," but whatever, they have good lyrics, rock rather hard, and focus mostly on what they believe to be the decay of American suburbs and politics.

"The Happiest Place On Earth"

I want to pledge allegiance to the country where I live
I don't want to be ashamed to be American
but opportunity, no, it doesn't exist
it's the opiate of the populace
we need some harder sh*t now
the truth is getting around
and each public school is a halfway house
where the huddled masses sober up and up, enough?
There's not enough to fatten the cows and feed all of us.
It's just a rationing of luck
what can't be bought gets raffled off
oh God, good God, shed greed on thee,
your shining sea turned a dirty green
from the industry off the shores of New Jersey

I got a letter from the army so I think that I'll enlist
I'm not brave or proud of nothing
I just want to kill something
too bad that nowadays you just point and click
swing low satellite, hot white chariot
in the computer's blue glare, the bombs burst in the air
there was a city once, now nothing is there
our freedom comes at their expense
it makes sense, does it? dollars and centers
they're stretching barbed wire across the picket fence
that is surrounding your housing development
just in case you lack the confidence
oh God, my God, give strength to thee
these amber waves, purple majesty
are nothing but backdrops for Disney
well look up close, it is superimposed on a blank blue screen
it is fantasy, f*cking magical
the dreams floats like a chemical through each snapped synapse
our television past that is beautiful
no more, no more

Troubles, any old troubles
Troubles, any old troubles
Give me your troubles one by one
I'll trade them all for a bag o´ fun
Any old troubles

Tears, any old tears
Tears, any old tears
Sun's gonna rise in the morning yes
Set in the evening with a sweet caress
Any old tears

Pain, any old pain
Pain, any old pain
I don't care what you've been told
All that glitters sure ain't gold
I'm gonna take you on a happy train
First you gotta give me all of your pain,
Any old pain

Troubles, any old troubles
Troubles, any old troubles
Give me your troubles one by one
I trade them all for a bag o´ fun
Any old troubles

AMUSED TO DEATH
Roger Waters

Doctor, doctor what is wrong with me
This supermarket life is getting long
What is the heart life of a color TV
What is the shelf life of a teenage queen

Ooh western woman
Ooh western girl

News hound sniffs the air
When Jessica Hahn goes down
He latches on to that symbol of detachment
Attracted by the peeling away of feeling
The celebrity of the abused shell, the belle

Ooh western woman
Ooh western girl
Ooh western woman
Ooh western girl

And the children on Melrose Strut their stuff
Is absolute zero cold enough?
And out in the valley warm and clean
The little ones sit by their TV screen
No thoughts to think
No tears to cry
All sucked dry
Down to the very last breath

Bartender what is wrong with me?
Why am I so out of breath?
The Captain said excuse me ma'am
This species has amused itself to death
Amused itself to death
It has amused itself to death
Amused itself to death

We watched the tragedy unfold
We did as we were told
We bought and sold
It was the greatest show on earth
But then it was over
We ohhed and aahed
We drove our racing cars
We ate our last few jars of caviar
And somewhere out there in the stars
A keen-eyed look-out
Spied a flickering light
Our last hurrah
Our last hurrah

And when they found our shadows
Grouped around the TV set
They ran down every lead
They repeated every test
They checked out all the data on their lists
And then, the alien anthropologists
Admitted they were still perplexed
But on eliminating every other reason
For our sad demise
They logged the explanation left
This species has amused itself to death
No tears to cry, no feelings left
This species has amused itself to death
Amused itself to death
Amused itself to death
Amused itself to death
Amused itself to death

Alf Razzell
Years later, I saw Bill Hubbard's name on the memorial to the missing at Arras.
And I...when I saw his name I was absolutely transfixed; it was as though he...
he was now a human being instead of some sort of nightmarish memory of how I had to leave him, all those years ago.
And I felt relieved, and ever since then I've felt happier about it, because always before, whenever I thought of him, I said to myself, 'Was there something else that I could have done?'
Put me down, put me down I'd rather die, I'd rather die, put me down.
And that always sort of worried me.
And having seen him, and his name in the register - as you know in the memorials there's a little safe, there's a register in there with every name - and seeing his name and his name on the memorial;
It sort of lightened, lightened my...heart, if you like.
Woman
When was it that you saw his name on the memorial?
Alf Razzell
Ah, when I was eighty-seven, that would be the year, ninete...eighty-four, nineteen eighty-four.

good one ' JB.

this song has my all time favourite opening lines

Flag Day
The Housemartins

Too many florence nightingales
Not enough robin hoods
Too many halos not enough heroes
Coming up with the goods
So you though you'd like to change the world
Decided to stage a jumble sale
For the poor, for the poor

It's a waste of time if you know what they mean
Try shaking a box in front of the queen
'cause her purse is fat and bursting at the seams
It's a waste of time if you know what they mean

Too many hands in too many pockets
Not enough hands on hearts
Too many ready to call it a day
Before the day starts

So you thought you'd like to see them healed
Got blue peter to stage an appeal
For the poor, for the poor

It's a waste of time if you know what they mean
Try shaking a box in front of the queen
'cause her purse is fat and bursting at the seams
It's a waste of time if you know what they mean

Flag day, flag day, flag day