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)

Between the Wheels

To live between a rock and a hard place -- in between time,
Cruising in prime time -- soaking up the cathode rays.

To live between the wars in our time -- living in real time,

Holding the good time -- holding onto yesterdays.

You know how that rabbit feels going under your speeding wheels.

Bright images flashing by like windshields towards a fly.
Frozen in the fatal climb, but the wheels of time just pass you by.

Wheels can take you around.  Wheels can cut you down.
We can go from boom to bust; from dreams to a bowl of dust.

We can fall from rockets' red glare down to brother can you spare.
Another war, another wasteland, and another lost generation.

It slips between your hands like water -- this living in real time.

A dizzying lifetime reeling by on celluloid.

Struck between the eyes by the big time world.

Walking uneasy streets, hiding beneath the sheets.
Got to try and fill the void. 

-- Neil Peart (Rush) 1984

Not Me

Who's gonna fight?  Not Me!
Who thinks it right?  Not Me!
"The threat of war is a passing phase."
Try telling that to a waiting grave.
They say the bunkers will be safe.
They're not big enough for the human race.

Who's having fun?  Not Me!
Gonna carry a gun?  Not Me!
I've got to fight; I got no choice.
They'll never hear my fucking voice.
Deafened in the deathly noise
Created by their brand new toys.

Who's gonna die?  Not Me!
I'll tell you why....
I won't do whatever they say
Even if it means getting put away.
That's what I think -- OK?
You've got to react -- it's the only way.

Subhumans, 1983

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

childhood lost

"As you can see, everything has just vanished. It's just like the whole thing has been completely erased from the face of the earth. I feel great anger. I feel massive sadness. It's like a complete loss of childhood...."
-- Morrissey, Top of the Pops interview (1983)