Working Class Hero

As soon as you're born, they make you feel small
By giving you no time, instead of it all
'Til the pain is so big you feel nothing at all

They hurt you at home, and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever, and they despise a fool
'Til you're so f*cking crazy you can't follow their rules

When they've tortured and scared you for twenty-odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function, you're so full of fear

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still f*cking peasants as far as I can see

There's room at the top, they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill

A working class hero is something to be

-- John Lennon (1970)

buried by the blues

Absolved forever into the darkest shades,
I'll vanish from the light to the still-calling me
Enslaved forever or buried by the blues?
Wear your wounds like a soldier; and let your ghosts run loose

Exploding waves, you wish you could belong
A piper at the gates to steal you from the dawn
No suicide could ever change your fate
Fold your hands in reply beneath the trembling rain

Against the night, you will rise and set your body free
Frontier of light, you desire to let your body sleep
Away from the static and noise
Away from the bombs and the war

-- Stephen McBean (Black Mountain) 2010

your life is a lie

Here's the deal -- open your eyes -- your life is a lie
Don't say a word.  I'll tell you why you're living a lie
Your life is a lie, but you deny you ever lied
Wondering why.  Barely alive
Count your friends on your hands.
Now look again -- they're not your friends
Hold your breath. Everyone left.  No surprise.  Living a lie....

Nobody wins.  Try not to cry.  You'll survive on your own

Lessons in life:  your life is a lie
Now there's no time wondering why
Where in the world is that girl who knows it's alright to live a life waiting to die?
Not knowing that your life is a lie
Wondering why nobody writes
Hollow inside.  Bitter delight.  Fire and ice.
Your life is a lie

-- MGMT (2013)

Apparitions

In the night, we'd run around in the streets
jacked up on life in hell.
Thunder love has struck us again;
we're apparitions of a sinful spell.

Elude the harsh reality of our lives,
we saw tears and tragedy.
We joined a pack of rebel angels at night
like apparitions of an infantry.

Let's get out of here.
I want you to come along.

In the sunless days of war,
I was a young pilot strewing death.
I see tears in frightened eyes;
put them to sleep 'til I was out of breath.

A silhouette of jealousy in the sky,
I took revenge on love nightly.
I'll take a hard look back someday
and deny we're apparitions of sympathy.

-- Sune Rose Wagner (Raveonettes) 2011

Effigy

Where I stand, the winds have always blown
Dust to sand -- the way I've always gone

Where I've been, the dreams that I've been shown
To burn again, to leave it all alone

All these plans are left with all these bones
And all of this, I won't miss.  I didn't want it
I never changed, never could

I won't wait, won't see straight for another year on
Shout out in hate -- it's a police state, and I want a way out

I don't want an apology; I want an effigy

-- Kato / Roeser (Urge Overkill) 2011

missing person

Home to sweet home, it just occurred to me
To be on my own in search of bitter treats.
I get so removed, but you never notice it
Step in my shoes; you'll see that I don't fit.

I walk home the wrong way
Hoping I'll go astray.
I'd like to be a missing person.

-- Neil Finn (Split Enz) 1980