Get all 9 Adam Murphy releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of POST MAN, Paddy's Day 2003, PROGRESS, ENLIGHTENMENT PLEASE, OUT OF THE SYSTEM, GREEN BLUES BLACK BALLADS AND SOME NORMAL SONGS FOR GUITAR AND PIANO, HALF-WAY, EVERYONE'S SPECIAL, and 1 more.
1. |
Think True
03:42
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Think, think true
Think it through
Think things through
Before you shoot
Before you do unto
And you can’t undo
Think, think true
Things you thought you knew
Weren’t true with a better view
Think, think anew
Think true
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2. |
High Hopes
04:23
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I hope you… I hope you… I hope you…
I hope you get home safe
I hope you sleep ok
Have some pleasant dreams
And wake to happy day
I hope you’re keeping well
Here’s to your health
If you have something to eat
Bon appétit
I wish you happy birthday
Ramadan or Christmas
Here’s to glad tidings
In your latest year
I hope you get home safe
Meet fortune on the way
Go n’eirí an bóthar leat
To where you lay your hat
I hope you’ve got a home
But if you only want to roam
You’ve not too great a load
I hope you’ve got a hope
I hope they find the black box
Eradicate the pox
That the boats get across
To this better place
They find an economic cure
That’s boring but secure
Tempering our greed
Desolation’s seed
I hope they find a way
To stop us laying waste
To our global home
And be done with war
I hope you get home safe
Live to tell the tale
Wake to see the day
And strengthen what we’ve gained
I hope you’ve got a home
Not sleeping in the snow
Hope you are not lonely
I hope you’ve got a hope
I hope we win today
But not every time we play
Though that must be the aim
It would ruin the game
Some get answers to their prayers
But it’s not fair
For those who pray and pray
Yet always lose anyway
I hope you have no troubles
Too great to face
Your fires and your waters
Are all in place
I hope your life is free
From undue tragedy
But if you’re deep in grief
I hope you find relief
I hope you get your dreams
If they are not mean
I hope you find a meaning
The search is good for me
I hope I hope I hope
What else will we do?
Enlighten with what’s true
And give reason to hope
I hope I hope I hope…
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3. |
What This Country Needs
03:12
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What everybody needs is a good heart
Beating through the blood to every part
Breathing in the air that we all share
What everybody needs is what’s out there
What every family needs is a good home
A haven of rest after you roam
And a good home needs community
Where everyone can live and let be in peace
What this parish needs is a good pump
One that’s working well for everyone
With the water coming in from miles around
Needing healthy country to surround
This land needs to be in a good state
Being at one with nature’s give and take
Living in sustaining harmony
A country that’s a good place to be
What this country needs is a good globe
Where everyone can live in realistic hope
For ourselves and the coming boys and girls
What this country needs is a good world
On our little dot in the cosmic swirl
Help to share the perils and the pearls
What this country needs is a good world
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4. |
Real Love
06:33
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I wish I were a cowboy lassoing all the girls
Wooing all the lasses and stirring them to purrs
I wish I were a strongman lifting them so high
I’d hear them all a-cooing “ooh what a guy”
If I were Casanova posing on a beach
All the peaches passing would be holding in a screech
I wish I were a rock star with a thousand screaming babes
Queuing up outside my window all every night and day
But in the real world I need real love
You can keep your jets and pearls
I get up early when you need me to
Promise to try to keep my word
In the real world I need real love
With its wobblies, wrinkles, warts and all
Through the mess and stress and sacrifice I need you to
To put up with my awful flaws
In this real life I need real love
You can have your fantasies too alright
Fun sometimes in the moment
Till you come to still in need
In the real world I want to show you real love
Through these days of ignorance, hate, lies and tribal greed
I don’t do cheap forever promises
In the future we can only just believe
Though I’ll be grumpy bumpy humpy frumpy
Sulky hulky spoilty
Through the rainy Monday mundane day-to-days
I’ll try to separate the chaff, throw the rubbish out the back
And revel in the simple pleasures while we have the luck to lead
The good life needs real love
Huddling on the cloudy sandy beach
With the children’s sandy sandwiches
Cries of joy and childish grief
I really really want ye to know real love
The greatest armour you’ll ever need
As you head out into the real world
Know how good real life can be
And carry the torch of real ideals
Spread the light from loving memories
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5. |
Wish
04:12
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I wish I were a Hindu moving up the tree of life
Knowing the poor mite I kill will see another light
Till we learn all the tricks
And know what to do
To get to chill out like Buddha in Nirvana
If I were a sultan with a householdful of wives
And a harumful of concubines to do with as I like
I'd be happy in my certainty
That if I do my duty
After this I'll be in an eternal virgin bliss
But what is true is that I love you and life can be good as we've proved
So it should for everyone with what we’ve learned and overcome
We ought to spare and spread and share the light we’ve made
Once I was a Christian with a stony set of rules
And a kind almighty father guaranteeing us poor fools
As long as we obey and praise him to the full
Try not raise his fury by questioning the cruelties
We could all retire to an eternal paradise
With everlasting smiles for everlasting time
Wouldn’t it be nice?
But what is true is that I love you and life can be good as we've proved
So it should for everyone with what we’ve learned and overcome
We ought to spare and spread and share the light we’ve found
Down here on our own
Wouldn’t that be nice enough?
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6. |
Sad Ol' Song
04:27
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Sing a sad old song
Sing a sad old song
Slowly, soulfully
Sing it deep and strong
This one’s for all you who’ve gone
By stone or stake or sword or bomb
By cruel hand, fool’s hand
Who cared not to understand
One for all ye long under earth
Who up above knew no mirth
No warmth, wonder, kindness or joy
But hunger and anguished heart
This one’s for all you here and now
Brow-beaten or mown down
By dark-brained black hearts’ poisoned power lust
Their dreams turning everything to dust
This one’s for all you to come
And the little ones here who run
With insouciant excitement
Feeling forever young
Let’s find a glad new song
Sing a glad new song
For a future in tune when
Inhumanity’s a thing long gone
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7. |
People Are Moving
04:10
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People are moving
Always did and will
Like the ocean waters
The world was never still
They go in search of freedom
They go in search of food
Everybody needs them
What you wouldn’t do
We must escape here
Can no more be slaves
Got to find a new home
In order to be saved
Have to leave our home land
We’re not allowed to stay
Many of us dying there
They’re driving us away
Would you do the same?
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8. |
Guilty Shoes
05:24
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In your shoes or my shoes
But whose shoes would you choose
To walk in if you could
Make wishes come true
And if you had the big boots
What would or should you do
If you could?
In your shoes or my shoes
But who has got no shoes
And how come it’s not you
What didn’t or did you do
To get the good or bad fortune
To win
Or to lose?
In your shoes or my shoes
But who’s to make your shoes
And do they get their dues
Would you change your outlook
Come to a different view
Should the shoe be put on the other foot?
Your shoes and my shoes
Do you queue for new shoes
Then put them for refuse
To ooze their pollutants
Through water and nutrients
That’s our food?
In your shoes or my shoes
And do you have guilt issues
Stones in your fancy boots
Or do you not give a hoot what ensues
For those who will fill thy shoes
And with our filth issues
Are our footprints
Those of the last ever boots
Or can we get through this
Make good use of all we use
And eschew the obtuse
Who skew the news
And spew their anti-human untruths?
In your shoes and my shoes
Who gets to choose
Your new first little baby shoes
It’s surely not you
What didn’t or did you do
To get the bad or good fortune
Is that all that makes you you?
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9. |
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Good doctors need to cure us
Nurses need to care
Teachers need to teach us
And judges to be fair
Farmers need to feed us
Mothers need to cope
Someone has to lead us
To a point of hope
Creators need to make stuff
Traders need to move stuff
Hopefully it’s good stuff
And not a wrecking waste
Dreamers need to dream
Ponders to ponder
Someone has to wander
The palace of ideas
Checking all the doors
See where they may lead us
The dreaming is what drives us
To a higher place
Mammies need to nag us
Daddies need to scold us
Then hug and wash and hold us
Together with their love
Success and praise will raise us
Failure down and round us
Humbling the hubris
We walk on common ground
Lovers need to love
Children need to play
Talkers need to listen
Or have nothing good to say
Dreamers need to dream
Ponders to ponder
Someone has to wander
The palace of ideas
Checking all the doors
See where the may lead us
The dreaming drives us
To a higher place
Some though
Never get to do it
Never get to find
Their magic gold inside
Maybe had no-one to show them
But you never know
When it’s not too late to try
Fix-it figurers need to figure
With their mental rigour
Diggers need to dig
Dancers gotta dance
Barmen need to quench us
Reporters ought to wrench us
Watchers need to ward us
Off our ignorance
Poets need to poke
Artists to evoke
Writers need to right us
Clowns can entertain
Dreamers need to dream
Ponders to ponder
Someone has to wander
The palace of ideas
Checking all the doors
See where the may lead us
The dreaming is what fires us above
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10. |
Song to Myself
03:40
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What is the point of being here?
What is the point of anywhere?
What is the meaning of all this?
Where is the point of this ball we exist on?
Everything’s connected everything counts
What comes affects what goes around
The greater the things matter to you
The more you matter too
What is the point of philosophy?
What is the point of any thinking?
What is the use of that to me?
What is the use of you?
The greater the sum of happiness
The greater your chance of some
Degrading another degrades me too
And returns at last to you
Life is as cheap dear, as cheap as you choose here
It’s only everything
Nature is cruel but we need not be
Life’s unfair but we can care
What is the meaning of all this?
What am I going to miss?
Where is the point of this ball?
I don’t know maybe it just is?
What is the point of being here?
What is the point of not?
What is the meaning of it all
Make the best of what we’ve got
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11. |
The Whatabout
05:40
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What about the id?
What about the kids?
What of kith and kin?
Is that all there is?
What about the self?
Do you need nothing else?
What about the tribe?
Are we all on one side?
What about our rights?
What about our wrongs?
What about trying to be
Responsibly strong?
What of those who can’t?
What of those who won’t?
Leave them rot or make them stand?
What about the wealth?
How the deck is dealt?
Injustice madly felt
As desperation’s spread
What about the walls?
What about the belts?
Decapitating captors
By sword or by stealths
Precision mishaps (oops!)?
Down on shattered kneecaps
What about the cops and
The innocent they shot?
But the guilty they got
Terror spread or stopped?
But what of shoot-to-kill?
Didn’t we do that as well?
Half a story to tell
Like poor little Belgium
Who made Congo into hell
For old Leopold himself
What about Allah?
What of the Torah?
Love your enemy
Or a cheek for a cheek?
How is the sixth commandment
Meant to sit
With your crusades
And jihadi bullshit
What about the pointless finger-pointing
At the pointless singling out of others’ sins
And crimes and bestialities?
What about The toad?
But we need more road
To haul our burning coals
To speed to melting poles
Blind to shoals
What about us?
What is all the fuss
When some of us are worse
Than the mosquitoes we crush?
Look at our abode
We’re ravaging our own hopes
Nature on the ropes
Will have to deal a knockout blow
What about the kids?
Can they live with what we did?
What about you?
What is your excuse?
Do you want to help
Or leave it all to someone else?
What about the pointless finger-pointing
At the pointless slinging stones
At broken mirrors lest we see and curse
Ourselves?
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12. |
Twinkle
03:55
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Twinkle twinkle mighty star
Not so tiny but very far away
From where I sit in wondering how
They know what you are
Twinkle twinkle giant star
How I wonder how we came so far
To stand under the endless sky
And understand its light
The greatest thing we find
Is not out there but inside
Wrapped in human kind
The magic of our mind
Twinkle twinkle mighty star
I wonder how you are so far away
That what we see is an ancient light
Such a humbling sight
Although the body be confined
Imagination can fly higher
Than all of space and time
No ticket is required
Twinkle twinkle mighty star
I wonder how you are
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13. |
The Winker
03:42
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Wonky thinkers want the winker…
He’s the winker – how he likes to wink
He’s the winker – might even buy you a drink
But he’ll hoodwink you – make you believe instead of think
The winker – leave it up to him
He’s the winker – with titanic deck-chair plans
A mover and a shaker of grasping empty hands
He’ll flatter on the doorstep – he’s got a way to get away
But leave you flat as a doormat at the end of the day
He’s the winker – with both hands on the pump
That’s where the votes are – dispensing drips to the chumps
He’ll help you skip the queue rather than fix the fecking thing
Fill your potholes while your houses slowly sink
He’s the winker – promising to say all the right things
“Let me be clear – I’ll tell you what you want to hear”
He’ll give you blinkers for free to help you not to see
Beyond your nose that he’s skinned to save you from the stink
Stays on and on the message nauseatingly
With his leeches’ speeches straight from the cliché machine
Waffling away till lunch and then he’ll beat you to the punch
Munching on his soundbites he’s mincing through his teeth
He pinched from the pot and got away with the lot
Now he promises to let you have a little bit of what he got
Oh thank you Winker
Oh thank you Winker you lovable old rogue
We’re in stitches since you ripped us with you slimy slinky strokes
The winker lies – he knows how we like to buy
See the honest politician anonymous on his bike
We love the winker although he fools us all
We love the winker – we’re in awe of his gall
Though he’s wrecked us we must respect he has some neck
Grafting for the grafters – he’s done so well for himself
Shafting us so craftily we still believe he means to help
Building boom and bust erections with his genius from the bank
Now he’s something too and he also likes to wink
What a winker what a winker
Sometimes he’s even a she
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14. |
Data
03:09
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Data data data they
Data data data though
Data data what do they
Do with all that data?
They might have all the data but no clue
Data data data day
Data data data though
How much of that data’s true?
What does all that data do?
Anyway it’s out of date before you can say it
Gobble gobble gobble the tree of knowledge
Or clog your brain with a stodgy porridge
Nibble nitpickily at what you can stomach
See what you want to see, read what you want to read
Know only what you want to know
Or what they’ll let you
Dum dum dum dum dum dum down
Dum dum dum dum dum dum down
Does your dum computer now
Do your thinking for you now?
Data data for the crowd
Where is any wisdom though?
Clickety clickety clickety click
Clickety clickety clickety clack
Picture this imagination a-lack
Monkey buy as told tap tap
Are they looking at you too to see what you’re up to?
Chittity chittity chittity instant claptrap
Concentration span of a gnat
Bitchy bitchy bitchy with your cyber bat
Between and betwixt the tweets and texts
Nothing gets said or read
In context
Data data data age
Data data data though
How much of that data’s good?
Is that data any use?
What do you know? Got the dope?
No dope?
Joe Dope.
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15. |
Goose
02:50
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It’s one for the goose
One for the gander now
One aims for truth
Another propaganda
You can show the turkeys slaughter
But you can’t make them think
A bird or a plane?
No it’s a pinion pig
Up there on my screen
It’s writ so plain and big
In fact it’s my opinion
‘Cos that’s what I’m free to think
I’m gonna find a pilot
To fly me to the edge of this big disc
We’re all living on
Because my horrorscopist told me
Seeing as I’m a lion
I’ll soon be the first to step over to the moon
My porridge pot broke down
So I found the fountain-rescue man
My bank went for a song
So I ran to my accountant
She said one and one is three
That’s the point of view I get to choose
My son got pneumonia
So I found the poor fortune-teller
She said “sooth quack sooth quack
Quack quack sooth”
So now I know the truth
I’ve no more need to think
And my son will be forever remembered as a youth
It’s one for the goose
One for the gander now
One seeks the truth
Others just stand there
Saying “I don’t care enough to know
I just believe what suits myself”
The ass thinks he’s independent
But thinks very little else
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16. |
Dark Dawn
04:09
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You can hear ‘em through the mourning
As you try to fix your head
Hear ‘em through the wailing
As you try to heal your heart
Hear ‘em calling
For more spilling to be done
They’ve been lurking in the shadows
Of happy apathy
Working on their gallows’
Recruiting strategy
Waiting for the shallow bubble
To come crashing in again
When we’ve squandered the larder
And found no magic porridge pot
With times getting harder
They’ll creep back like small pox
They’re cranking up the ante
As you try to clear your eyes of bomb dust
Tanking your I.Q.
With a headful of tabloid Murdoch muck
Sacrificing facts and logic
At the altar of wild hate
They’re appealing to the basest
Instincts of animus
Feeding the racist
We’ve buried inside all of us
To let you lesser nature
Get the better of you
And they’re coming in here
Taking shots at your empathy
Making it okay
To come out again with bigotry
Presenting you with patsies
To aim your buckshot phantom fears
And they’ll drag you so far left and so far right
The twain shall meet
Ripping out the core
And winding back the clock of human dignity
You can hear ‘em through the mourning
As you try to mend your head
In the dark dawn
They’ll simplify to conquer it
“No nonsense”, no nuances
No dilemmas, no mercy no doubt
Are you just the petty pawn
Who shouldn’t have to try to work it out
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17. |
Big Bad World
03:49
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They’re coming from the big bad world
Coming for your boys and your girls
They’re going to take your house and home
They’re going to make it all their own
They’re coming to take over your town
They’re big and bad and black and brown
They’re only here to scavenge and to scrounge
Soon we’ll be swamped all around
They're leaving their luxurious lands
‘Cause they’re too lazy to lend a hand
So they creep across desert sands
Give everything to the crooked man
Take a chance on dire straits
Stow away in filthy freights
To come and take your jobs away
To come and take your dole away
To build your house and clean it away
Come and take our phoenix away
They’re subhuman forms covered in tar
Twisting our sympathy
Yesterday I even saw one driving a car
They may fool you but not me
They’re like Okies going to California
Semites to and from the promised land
Swallows seeking clearer air
Paddies going everywhere
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18. |
The Tanks
02:39
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The think-tank thinks “TANKS”
The mongers hawk their wares
Twiddling twitchy trigger-happy thumbs
On joy sticks, sicko toys
Itching to destroy
With warships they worship
They sank the peace ships, out-flanked
Peaceniks made to walk the plank
In the drink the sharks
Get drunk on blood
Brinkmanship cranks it up
No chinks in callous consciences
But the clinky-clank of booty in the bank
Of those bellicose whose motives stank
Most sulphureous rose through the ranks
With the tinkling of the toasting
Of another slam-dunk
The think-tank thinks “TANKS”
Empty vessel drones entranced
Beating their war chests with strangulating hands
To their genocidal romance
Please say “no thanks”
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19. |
The Old Days
06:38
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Milk bottles used to be delivered to the doorstep every day
Got the newspaper too, spread it out to see what they'd say
With a coffee, a crossword, and a cigarette all was okay
But now the trees are down, those days are gone away
I used to drive around from town to town
Stop at the locals, take in the sessions and swill pints down
Now the petrol's up in smoke and a carbon cloud's hanging over our hopes
Those days are gone
People used to make songs come from the soul
Those with ears and brains and hearts would let them seep into their bones
Now we're surrounded by 30-second suggestive flashing snatches and nothing's whole
Attention spans have shrivelled and mediocrity is overblown
Nothing stays the same
Never did and never will again
It used to be that nothing ever changed
You'd know your station where you were born and there would never be a train
And they' d pour scorn on any notion of a better way
Say “that's your fate boy so just pray” for the supernatural fairytale
They used to have kids working down the mines
Sixty hour weeks, no play or learning time
Sliding barefoot through the shit-strewn slums of slime
No water safe to drink, but bad beer or grog or wine
And it used to be fair game to ruin a town over a row
Rape the women before the kids then cut them down
Burn witches on the faggots and the stakes
Buy slaves and break their backs - gone are those days
Nothing stays the same
Never did and never will again
Now we live in a time of the greatest human boom
More and more of us alive although our women have fewer babies born
So they’re freer to live and add to the brain pool
And far fewer children dying before they’re two
Despite this we’re rolled over with bad news shows
Besides the petty gossip and jokes they don’t tell us the good no
All the famines and epidemics and wars that could have been but never were
Because some people thought and worked to find the vaccines and the cures
Imagine living in those bad old days of smallpox
Scurvy, TB, AIDS, and chronic homophobia
Stigmas, superstition, and female mutilation
Making tales of pure invention for cure prevention
Imagine in those dark old days people used to kill each other
Let each other starve to death just to get more weaponry
Family men in decent suits would make and buy and sell this stuff
Then go to mosque and church and synagogue and pray to save themselves
Imagine in those dark old days when people used to kill each other
Razing towns with joysticks sitting in their swivel seats
Or strapping bomber planes to their youths to go dropping them
On hospitals and schools just in case they hid a ‘terrorist’
Racists and religionists and tribal supremacists
Doing hell unto each other in the cloak of righteousness
Warring romantics and those who use and egg them on
Snuffing future hopes for those who want to live life
And imagine in those awful days people used to waste their time
Amassing meaningless amounts of monstrous material
Burning up the earth to fuel their twisted ego trips
Then pleading for pity while stamping on the poor
Imagine those dark old days when humans used to kill
Many times more meat than they’d ever need to eat their fill
A thousand times more species extinguishing because of us
Who thought we could consume our whole planet with impunity
What on earth were they thinking?
What kind of world was that?
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20. |
Gene
02:22
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Hi there gene how’ve you been
A useful kind or just plain mean?
The fittest can’t survive alone
Even if you’re Queen bee
You still need to be tended by the drones
Better keep them sweet
Because even they have a waking point
Hi there gene how’ve you been
Are you a drain or are you keen
To pull your weight and help the team?
It doesn’t mean you can’t do what’s true to you
What you do will move the group an inch or two
The kids will live according to your deeds
Greedy gene can only go so far
Doesn’t matter who or where or when you are
What goes up goes ‘round and ‘round
And comes back down again
Power sits on the edge of a guillotine
Hi there gene how’ve you been
Have you been kind or have you been mean?
The fittest cannot thrive alone
Even if you’re bees knees as we may be
No-one owns the big machine
That we lean on for our being
We engineers, we who steer
Who’ve cleared the path to the vale of tears
But it doesn’t mean we can’t veer away from there
Hi gene can we clean
The myopic mud off our shallow dreams
Or is it good-bye gene and we’re off the scene
No more you man, me man
Human gene gone forever?
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21. |
One Per Cent
04:06
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One per cent, one per cent
Let me into that one per cent
One per cent, one per cent
Give me my chunk of the opulence
Or I’ll huff and puff and stone
This whole stained glasshouse down
One per cent, one per cent
I’m incensed at the wealth condensed
One per cent, one per cent
I’m off the fence shaking signs at them
But they’re laughing down on me
As I slot my cash into their ubiquitous machine
They don’t mind my spitting at the sky
So long as I comply when they tell me what to buy
How well they realise we all have our price
But does anybody know the value of this life
One per cent, one per cent
Make me spend my sense, blind to consequence
One per cent, one per cent
Suck me into abetment
Pollute my world for cheap
With heaps of crap nobody needs
Play your part in the putrescence
Get you whiff of decadence
To find out how to make your ascent
Focus on your ruthless single narrow-mindedness
One per cent, one per cent
Some say their will gives us all more strength
One per cent, one per cent
With their convenient fallacies in their own defence
“Just look out for yourself – anyone has a chance”
To roll the loaded dice they dispense
|
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22. |
Ten Per Cent
05:59
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|
Ten per cent, ten per cent,
I’m down in the bottom ten per cent
Ten per cent, ten per cent
At the mercy of the elements
Trying to get that hundred cents a day
The Grim Reaper awaits my crop to fail
Ten per cent, ten per cent
I pedalled up out of that ten per cent
For a thousand days I scrimped and saved
To get my bike and now I’m on my way
Speeding to the market and the well
In half the time with twice the load to sell
Happy days! I‘m here to stay
Don’t have to roam, I’ve got a solid home
Water comes to me
I even have some electricity
Happy days are here to stay
With all our essential material needs
My kids have the joy of literacy
To add to their wild acuity
Ten per cent, ten per cent
I’m only in the top ten per cent
Still must pay the wolf at the door
To deter the dinosaur
I’m in dire need of obscene luxury
Because I’m worst – it’s only the best for me
One per cent, one per cent
It’s tough here in the top one per cent
One per cent, one per cent
Go get your own inheritance
I’m entitled to my luck
But they make it such heavy work
Handling the hate
With twisted defence and fortified gate
Had to pull the ladder up
To stop them grabbing my stuff
Though I’m here living the dream
I have to block out the screams
Of the worthless starving serfs
Only good for the dirty work
I took the best advice
To never think twice
But we played the game so well
Now we’re chieftains of an earthly hell
Prisoners of our own bent rules
Make cash your king and you will be its fool
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23. |
The Meanie of Life
02:30
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|
I'm coming into money and everything is sunny
My dream and aspiration to come true
No more need to worry I'll devour and be merry
Nothing more will make me give a hoot
Saddled up by models and love will be a doddle
I can buy myself a bunny or a few
I'll be gone from rags to riches, silly slags to snotty bitches
To the rest I’ll give a finger or two
Don’t you worry dear I promise I will share with you
As long as you have what I have in mind
I’ll be free to be a bully to the little folk I used to be
Before I left that spithole behind
I’m going to keep on shopping till everything is gotten
Till everything is rotten or gone
Milking all the honey making sure that there’ll be none
Ye little brats can win a planet of your own
Everyone will love me – well I expect they better
The jet-set will have to let me in for free
I’ll order monstrocious monuments
To my magnificent megalomaniacal magnanimity
But I’m under no illuminations, no I know when I am very old
Even I will have to die sometime
But with a wink and a nod I’ll throw a few quid at god
So he can squeeze me through the needle’s eye
Me me me me me me meany me me me me me me
And my money is the meaning of life
|
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24. |
First They Came
02:54
|
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|
First they came for the moa
Then disappeared the old great auk
Then the friendly dodo
Did no-one speak up?
They got one lot of rhino
Gone the way of the golden toad
Paved over real life
With desolation roads
Shock! Shock! The lion’s shot
Shrug so what the whole jungle’s chopped
Stocked up into boxes
For you feel-good shop
Gorillas cling on grimly
To the balding mountain-top
While the king of apes
Wastes tomorrow’s crop
The quagga and the sea cow
The tiger of Tasmania too
From four billion passenger pigeons
To none now even in a zoo
Gone gone, they’re all gone
Gone forever wiped away
These just some of the big ones
From dozens every day
To starve the so-called Indians
They slaughtered so-called buffalo
From a starting sixty million
A few thousand left to go
And when they’ve done the others
They’ll come for you and me
Till when we’ve done each other
And there’s no-one left to speak
And when we’ve proved ourselves
To be the dumbest of all the beasts
The rest of life can breathe again
And slowly start to heal
|
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25. |
Fair Game
02:17
|
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|
Gonna kill kill a zillion krill
Sell it as a healthy pill
Take it from the whales and penguins
Let the pay the bill
Take off the last of the rhinos’ horns
Sell it for some old wives’ yarns
Sloth brains with bursting
Leopard-skin purses
Drain the swamp, burn the trees
Who needs birds and bees
The frigid mega-market
Has everything I need
Plastic fish in mercury
From ever-lasting poisoned seas
Special deal on free clean air
While stocks last
Put dolphins into tins of tuna
Strangulate turtles too
Sorry there panda
Gotta strip all the bamboo
Drown the melting polar bears
Why hell on earth should I care?
Dugong, iguana, orangutang
Don’t mention the ivory in the room
Drain the swamp kill the bees
Who needs clean seas
A sterile sandy beach
Has all that I need
Mess up the hornet’s nest
Feather our own grave
Let the black hearts rule the roost
And they’ll let what’s left of us
A room in their human zoo
|
||||
26. |
Junk
03:07
|
|||
|
Junkie junkie junkie who’s hooked on gunky goo
Flunky flunky flunky who’ll join the junkie queue
For junk food, junk news, music to make cynics drool
Junkie junkie junkie you must buy and dump anew
Litter on the streets, litter on the airwaves
Litter on the shelves and screens
Edible litter in litter boxes advertise litter beings
Little litterbugs or glitterati thugs
So anal about hygiene
That nature’s thrashed with chemical trash
Only the surface is clean
As we hide our dirty guilt in this age of furtive filth
Junkie junkie junkie do, see and go pollute
Flunky flunky flunky who’ll join the junkie queue
For junk clothes, junk fear, music to the cynics’ ears
Come to junkie junkie dealer for all your junkie needs
Litter underground, litter in the air
Micro-beaded seas
Litter in the woods hanging off the trees
Plastic instead of leaves
Litter on the landscape, litter in the soundscape
Even floating around in space
Little litter bugs dirtier than dogs
Little better than flies
There’d be sunscreen oceans and concrete strands
If we ever get to paradise
Litter in the scrapyards, litter on the roads
On a turbo charge to doom
Canned losers in land bruisers
Show-off vandals’ bubbles boom
Waster waster waster who makes goodness into goo
Lay to waste and race to use it all before you’re through
We love it more than life, love it more than thought
More than your children’s future too
Waste and waste the world away, its only use for you
Disposable packs, disposable machines
Disposable human beings
Ill-disposed to all other species
On a conscious course to dispose of ourselves
So stop buying shit and they’ll stop making it
|
||||
27. |
Food for Thought
02:40
|
|||
|
Give me your bin you stingy git
My kids are dying for what is in it
You grab all the stuff and when you've stuffed your face
Turn the rest into toxic waste
You choose to bite more than you can chew
Then spit the rest in the face of fortune
To show what it means to be stinky rich
Rub the needy’s noses in the it
Give me your bin you dirty git
You’re making the world a seething cesspit
It’s best before you poison the drain
To use your eyes and nose and brain
You say it’s just one chicken’s breast
But with billions more wasters like you
Imagine what a disgusting mess
You make with that foul attitude
We kill much more than we ever need to eat well
What kind of animal would do that?
Moaning about the price and the refuse rights
As you dump your cash on the laughing fat cats
You think you’re being big but your really mean
Depriving those you’ll never ever meet
You think you’re being clean sterilising everything
Polluting the land beneath your feet
Give me your skip you lazy git
You should have thought before you bought all that noxious plastic
To help to mould it into something new
Is now the least you can do
Give me your bin you stingy git
Ownership behoves mindfulness
I know a lot of guilt is on me too
I’m just throwing out some food for thoughtlessness
|
||||
28. |
Too Short
03:29
|
|||
|
I'm up at 5 o'clock
Up to chase the buck
To slave and break my back
So I can get me too much stuff
I sell a pile of trash
So I can buy a pile of crap
In this all-consuming habit we're trapped in
Destroying our habitat
Life's too short to be asleep
Life's too short to stress
I try to live a life of ease
Without being too useless
I rise 4a.m.
And run a quick marathon
Then I read every paper cover to cover
Over a grain of bran
At 6 I'm at my desk
Submitting to the net
Then I knuckle down till 3a.m.
That's the meaning of success
Life's too short to be asleep
Gotta chase that dream
But it's hard to dream efficiently
When you're centre of the scheme
I work ten times more hours than your wimpy eight-a-day
That's why I deserve to get a thousand times more pay
With a mere two or three hours a night I can handle anything
Since I attained the goal of being empty of empathy
I’m up at 5 o’clock
And it's already dark
Have breakfast lunch and dinner all in one
Before gigging at the bar
Then it's fun till the rising sun
Some say its a sin
But all work and no play
Will make Jack a dull musician
Life’s too short to work all day
Life’s too short to waste
Life’s too short to stay awake
What with all those dull clichés
|
||||
29. |
Sighing Off
04:17
|
|||
|
The old man sighs
For things that might have been
His loved ones on his side
Everyone but
Time
A king that had been kind
To him, but now flown by
Forever an exile
The old man sighs
Those things that might have been
Lost but that he saved
And those that got away
What he did or didn't do
Did he do the best he could
Within his range?
The old man smiles
Hears children playing outside
Sure their future's fine
How he hopes they're right
He's seen his species slide
And burn in their own flames
And then return saying
“Never again“
Again
The old man sighs
A long expansive life
But how many more...
Will get to try
Could he have gone the extra mile
The old man sighs off
|
||||
Adam Murphy Ireland
Adam Murphy was born and raised in Cork, Ireland, but is a long-time Galway resident after periods living and working in
Europe, USA, and UK.
‘Progress’ is his ninth album of original material. Each collection has a discrete flavour and is a set of thematically linked pieces. His work has been aired regularly on RTE and other radio stations in Ireland and abroad, most recently in the Far East.
... more
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