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Crass
Christ - The Album
Ladies and gentlemens it's Christ... It's Crass.
Crass by name, even worse by nature, like it or not, they just won't go away. Crass are distempered dog end of rock 'n'
roll's once bright and vibrant rebellion. That they're so unattractive, unoriginal and badly unbalanced in an
uncompromising and humourless sort of way, simply adds to the diseased attraction of their naively black and white world
where words are a series of shock slogans and mindless token tantrums to tout around your tribe and toss at passers by.
Good old Crass, our make believe secret society, out let's pretend passport to perversity. They're
nothing but a caricature and a joke.
*
Same old stuff, you've heard it all before,
Crass being crass about the system, or is it war?
We ain't got no humour, we don't know how to laugh,
If you don't fucking like it - fucking tough!
Cos I'm the same old monkey in the same old zoo
Same old message trying to get through,
Screaming from the platform when the train ain't even there,
I've got a one way ticket, but I don't fucking care.
If what I've got to say is always much the same,
It's cos the game the system plays is still the same old game.
Senile idiots in their seats of power,
Ancient rotting corpses breathing horror by the hour.
They're lovers of death the fucking creeps,
Screwing our earth, as our earth weeps.
Iron ladies and steel men
Waiting for their fucking war to start again.
Blood lusting nutters plan death for us all,
They'll be hiding in their bunkers as we watch the missiles fall,
Ain't they just so decent, respectable and nice,
Eating the fat of the land while it's us that pay the price.
Westminster's full of psychopaths with blood clots 'stead of brains,
Flesh hungry vultures picking our remains,
Shitting on the world they've shat on many times before,
Fucked it good and proper in the name of law.
Well bollocks to the lot of you and you can fuck off too,
If you're bored with what I say, no-one's asking you.
Just fuck off and have your fun,
Hoist your jolly roger and wave your plastic gun,
With your painted faces and your elegant style,
How about trying to think for a while?
As your decorate your lifestyle with cheap consumer bliss,
Forget about loving, it's your arse you're going to kiss.
As long as they've got you under their thumb
With T.V. lobotomy and media fun,
They'll have their way with you, what more can I say?
Watch out for the mind police and have a nice day.
Then they find their mate. The female climbs into the male where she'll live the rest of her life. It's a simple life... / Come on now Ursula, come on, come. She's lovely. Yes isn't she. I'm gonna pinch you, I'm gonna pinch you, I am, I am.
*
Mummy and daddy owned me till I could understand
That at the end of my arm was my own fucking hand.
In my head I had a brain that they filled up with lies,
I didn't fucking need them with their love and family ties.
Little children shouldn't speak until they're spoken to,
They're just another showpiece to show the neighbours who
Can produce the perfect babe with everything in place,
But god help you if you come out without an angel face.
If you haven't got the looks that prove how nice you are,
You'll have failed your duty and that's all you fucking are,
You're just a status symbol that they need to have in life,
Just the proof they need to be the perfect man and wife.
Mummy and daddy owned me till I could understand
That at the end of my arm was my own fucking hand.
In my head I had a brain that they filled up with lies,
I didn't fucking need them with their love and family ties.
Like a fucking dustbin they fill you up with trash,
And tell you all that life is, is working for some cash,
Life's a competition and you've got to be the best,
So tread on everybody else, forget about the rest.
They tell you to be grateful for what they've done to you,
Like tell you the conditions and pump it into you,
That you really mustn't fail them cos you owe them a debt,
Cos they're the ones that made you and they won't let you forget.
Mummy and daddy owned me till I could understand
That at the end of my arm was my own fucking hand.
In my head I had a brain that they filled up with lies,
I didn't fucking need them with their love and family ties.
You're not a human in their eyes, you're a novelty.
They don't want you thinking, you'll break the fantasy,
The fantasy that you're the toy providing endless fun,
You're not a human being, you're their daughter or their son.
You bring them lots of happiness when you're very small,
But when you lose those darling looks no-one cares to call,
Cos you're no more the cuddly toy for them to hug and hold,
You're not an individual and they're just getting old.
Mummy and daddy owned me till I could understand
That at the end of my arm was my own fucking hand.
In my head I had a brain that they filled up with lies,
I didn't fucking need them with their love and family ties,
I didn't fucking need them with their love and family ties,
I didn't fucking need them with their love and bloody ties,
I didn't fucking need them with their love and bloody ties,
I didn't fucking need them with their love and family ties,
I didn't fucking need them with their love and bloody ties,
I didn't fucking need them with their love and bloody lies,
I didn't fucking need them with their love and bloody ties,
I didn't fucking need them with their love and bloody lies.
They were a tragedy weren't they, 'twas a terrible evening, dreadful, as we saw those scenes on television and saw how marvellous our police were / The pattern of rioting has gradually intensified with mounting anger at the deaths of the two teenagers killed by an army Land Rover / I now realise every time I see a tragedy in the paper, we're lucky, our son was restored to us and I know how anyone feels if their son is missing / A Northern Ireland minister was asked if he believed the army was to blame. "I very much regret, as I'm sure everybody does, the deaths of those two teenagers in Londonderry last night. It has to be said that some 250 people get killed on the roads in this province every year and of course when a riot takes place there's much more risk of a road accident than at any other time" / And then you know there are some terrible cruelties and personal tragedies in life and every day I look in the papers and read them I know the agony they're going through and Mark knows too.
*
Who needs lobotomy when we've got the ITV?
Who needs ECT when there's good old BBC?
Switch on the set, light up the screen,
Fantasise and dream about what you might have been,
Who needs controlling when they've got the cathode ray?
They've got your fucking soul, now they'll fuse your brains away.
Mindless fucking morons sit before the set,
Being fed the mindless rubbish they deserve to get.
Can't switch off big brother, they've lost all will to act,
Lost in drab confusion, was it fiction, was it fact?
Another plastic bullet stuns another Irish child,
But no-one's really bothered, no, the telly keeps them mild.
They've lost all sense of feeling to the every hungry glow,
Drained of any substance by the vicious telly blow.
No longer know what's real or ain't, slowly going blind,
They stare into the goggle box while the world goes by, behind.
The Angels are on T.V. tonight, grey puke fucking shit.
The army occupy Ireland, but the boot will never fit.
Was it Coronation Street? Or was it Londonderry?
Oh it doesn't fucking matter, Paul Daniels'll keep us merry.
Yes, I've heard of Bobby Sands, wasn't it Emmerdale Farm?
Yes, that's right, he was kicked by a cow, I hope it didn't do him no harm.
And wasn't the Holocaust terrible, good thing it wasn't for real.
Of course I've heard of H-Block, it's the baccy with man appeal.
Deeper and deeper and deeper, layer upon layer.
Illusion, confusion, is there anyone left who can care?
Yes, the Abbey National cares for you. Nat West, and Securicor.
Well brings out the Branston bren-guns let's spice it up some more.
The Sweeney are cruising Brixton, created another Belfast.
And J.R.'s advising Thatcher on lighting, make up and cast.
A thousand camera lenses point at the people's pain,
As millions of mindless morons watch the action replay again, the action replay again.
Softly, softly, into your life, you're held in it's brilliant glow.
Softly, softly, feeding itself on the you you'll never know.
You're life's reduced to nothing, but an empty media game.
Big Brother ain't watching you mate, you're fucking watching him.
For that misery of the spirit that is betrayed in the set of a face, there are no statistics / It is not those that can inflict the most, but those that can suffer the most who will conquer.
*
Do you think I was born on this wretched earth for you to govern and kill?
In your stinking factories and offices with your stupid systems and skills.
Do you think I've got nothing better to do than to grovel in the shit and the crap,
Asking for the bread and home that's mine and waiting for a pat on the back?
You think I've got nothing better to do than to live in the lie that you give?
Learn the sweet morals, the lessons, the games and praise god for the fact that I live?
You took me and made me a MAN
By making me strong, the power of this land.
You took a woman and taught her she's less,
A slave to the strong no more than a guest.
You taught me to love, find a mate and to take
A woman to serve but your love is just rape.
You leave me my children to hold and distort,
To bind with your rules of normality till caught.
I give them the food that you sell in the shops,
I'm told is has goodness when it's only the slops.
You've taken my health with your shitty benevolence,
You've take my dignity with your dole queue dependence.
You taught me to steal when I wanted to share,
To take for myself and not even care.
You've stifled my vision with oppressive authority,
The dreams and the hopes nearly fade to strangle me.
You gave me confusion until I had learnt
To obey all the orders and never get burnt.
I shout in the streets and you take my voice,
This sham of democracy leaves no choice.
You've taken my eyes till there's nothing to see
Except abuse and destruction, no chance to be free.
You've taken my thinking, my means of survival,
Thrust in my hand your gun and your bible.
You told me to kill for the lord up above,
You've given me hate when I KNOW THERE IS LOVE.
You told me to kill for the lord up above,
You've given me hate when I KNOW THERE IS LOVE.
We must beat the bomb and the gun, we must protect the law abiding citizen wherever they are in the United Kingdom, always / The police and the soldiers are required if necessary to shoot to kill to maintain order. That is Civil Defence in nuclear war.
*
Beg the question, bend the truth
Bail out the basement while there's holes in the roof
In the beginning they said there was light,
Well there ain't much left of it now.
We're lost in the darkness, searching sound and sight
Of an answer to the what, where or how.
We're talking 'bout freedom while we're locked in a cell,
Dreaming of a world without war,
Forced to live on the boundaries of hell
Like no-one's ever thought of peace before.
What's the point of preaching peace if it's something you don't feel?
What's the point of talking love if you think that love ain't real?
Where's the hope in hopelessness? Where's the truth in lies?
Don't try to hold my hand if you can't look me in the eyes.
Beg the question, bend the truth
Bail out the basement while there's holes in the roof
In the beginning they said there was light
But somebody's burnt out the fuse.
And now we're all lost in eternal night
Looking for a candle to use.
Lots of little candles, isolated hope,
Frail little flames in the gale,
Lost little people who just can't cope,
Just knocking their heads on the nail.
What's the point of talking freedom if you just protect yourself?
What's the point of preaching sharing as you accumulate your wealth?
It's so easy to be giving if the things you give ain't real.
It's so easy to lie if your ignore the things you feel.
Beg the question, bend the truth
Bail out the basement while there's holes in the roof
In the beginning they said there was light
But we never had the eyes to see.
But rather than struggling or putting up a fight
We ran like lemmings to the sea.
No-one really wants to get it all together,
It's easier to just grab what you can.
Everybody's going it, hell for leather,
Building little castles in the sand.
Hypocrisy, delusion, lies, pretence, deceit,
Think only of yourself and the world's at your feet
I don't believe the things you say, you make bullshit of the truth.
The game you play's offensive and you life's the living proof.
Beg the question, bend the truth
Bail out the basement while there's holes in the roof
Beg the question, bend the truth
Bail out the basement while there's holes in the roof
In the beginning they said there was light
But I'm tired of hearing their lies.
I'm tired of deceit, gonna put up a fight,
I'm going to use my own eyes.
Gonna make my decisions, live my own life,
They can keep their darkness and gloom.
Hypocrisy, trickery, I've had enough,
They can keep their destruction and doom.
I've only one life and I'll live it my way,
They can keep their restrictions and law.
And if they think different I'll have one thing to say...
"Fuck off cos I've heard it before."
I always wanted to experience war, I was raised on it, I, every birthday I got cap-guns and helmets and canteens, played war all the time when I was a kid. The television was always war movies, best thing for you, make a man out of you / To the man in your life your complexion can be the most attractive thing about you. / I think every woman deserves a beauty soap that's really rather special - don't you?
*
Birth Control 'n' Rock 'n' Roll
Industry on the mercenary bloodpath,
Military loves the gory warbath,
Economics shape the battle landscape,
All join together for the grand rape.
Moral intentions make a scapegoat,
Excuse the rotting corpse inside the trenchcoat.
Praise the rotting minds above the club tie
That sits in towers up in the blue sky,
Above the clouds, obscure the scarred earth,
Discuss manoeuvres, moves for more death,
Arms make profit from the crushed head,
Build the towers up on the ditch head.
Betrayal forms the formal skyline,
Tinted windows catch the sunshine,
Such ice cold beauty makes the heart sink,
Five thousand miles away the dead stink.
And here the graveyard to insult them,
The city shines with laughing tombstones.
The profiteers, the warcry butchers,
Stir up the lust for legal slaughter.
The living dead who look up to them,
Who accept authority that kills them,
Work for the corporation making napalm,
Workers watch the burning children on T.V.
As they eat their meat pie
With refusal in their minds
Eye to see their own lives in that cold death,
Their state of wealth upon that lost breath.
In the official offices of deathplan
Leaders of men work to betray man.
Stocks and shares declare the next war,
The torture starts behind the locked door,
Propaganda tops the big desk.
Compose an overture to fine death.
The hideous grey men of our nightmares
Dim the colour, foul the clean air,
Their eyes forsake all that they dwell on,
Drag the lover from the loved ones.
Patriots progress is a backstep,
A cruel noose around a young neck.
They teach our children in the classroom
To respect a madman on a rostrum,
To praise the dirty works of battle,
Bring out the ribbon, balloon and rattle,
To dig their own graves in the cold earth...
So sad and pointless now to give birth.
I'll keep my dreams and just pretend. / Parents genuinely believe that they can hold and protect their children. / The whole family needs them. It's the same every Sunday, the same game.
*
The grey man at the wheel
Looks around to see if there's some skirt he can steal
He doesn't really want to, he's just acting out a game
And in their own fucked up way, most people do the same
She cleans the bathroom mirror so she can line her eyes
An expert in delusion, an artist in disguise
She's not content with what she is, but she does the best she can
But she doesn't do it for herself, she does it for her man
And meanwhile he's out hunting, this master of the hunt
Cruising down the high street in his endless search for cunt
And the posters on the hoardings encourage his pursuit
Glossy ads, where men are men, and women simply cute
And the men are in their motorcars and the men have nerves of steel
And they dreams of charlies angels as they firmly grip the wheel
And they fantasise they're screwing in the back seat of the car
Fantasise they're fucking with a real life movie star
Fantasies to fill the gaps, to fill in every crack
A whitewash of reality to hide the truth they lack.
Now she's sponging down the cooker, on the surface all is fine
His dinner's in the oven cos he's doing overtime
She switches on the telly, it makes her feel secure
Helps confirm her way of life, who needs to ask for more
She sees the happy family unit, wife and hubby on the screen
The perfect social unit, just like it's always been
She's done the very best she can
To love and honour and obey her man
And if she should ever doubt the wisdom of her choice
She can turn on the television for its moderating voice
The ads and weekly series are the proof she needs
That a life of boredom outweighs the deeds
She sits up till the epilogue and goes to bed alone
Content that when he's finished work he'll go straight home
Meanwhile he downs another scotch, the lady has a coke
And if he's asked about the wife he treats it as a joke
"Hear the one about the you-know-what"
He's got what it takes and he takes what he's got
He took his woman and he'll take plenty more
She took on a rat to keep the wolf from the door
Then maybe in her loneliness she'll want to have a child
Who'll be taught the games of adulthood, boxed and filed
Another life to whitewash, to us a child is born
To follow in its parents' tracks, the path's well worn
Fantasy and falsehood, truth and lie
The fucked up system they call reality
The system needs its servants, each birth is one more
Gently talk of freedom as they quietly lock the door
Cos the system needs its servants if the system's going to run
Needs its fodder for the workhouse, its targets for the gun.
Don't be deceived when they tell you things are better now. Even if there's no poverty to be seen because the poverty's been hidden. Even if you got more wages and could afford to buy more of these new and useless goods which industries foist on you and even if it seems to you that you never had so much, that is only the slogan of those who still have much more than you. Don't be taken in when they pat you paternally on the shoulder and say that there's no inequality worth speaking of and no more reason to fight because if you believe them they will be completly in charge in their marble homes and granite banks from which they rob the people of the people of the world under the pretence of bringing them culture. Watch out, for as soon as it pleases them they'll send you out to protect their gold in wars whose weapons, rapidly developed by servile scientists will become more and more deadly until they can with a flick of the finger tear million of you to pieces.
Jean-Paul Marat, died 1793
Let us once and for all
In this civilised world
End the idea of glorious wars
Won by glorious armies.
Let us once and for all
See that neither side is glorious
And on each side men stand
Frightened and shitting themselves.
Let us once and for all
Show real courage
No one wants to lie beneath the earth
People at war all want the same thing,
To walk upon it
Without crutches.
*
It's The Greatest Working Class Rip-Off
Ain't it just a rip off, oi, oi, oi
Ain't it just a rip off, oi, oi, oi
Ain't it just a rip off, oi, oi, oi
What a fucking rip off, oi, oi, oi
Another threatening glance, another macho stance,
Another aggressive fist, another arsehole pissed,
Another vicious threat, a stream of blood stained sweat,
Another bottle waved in the air, another battle with tension and fear.
Ain't it just a rip off, oi, oi, oi
Ain't it just a rip off, oi, oi, oi
Ain't it just a rip off, oi, oi, oi
What a fucking rip off, oi, oi, oi
Tell me, why do you glorify violence? Ain't there nothing better to give?
Why fuck up the only chance to be yourself and really live?
You tell me you're a working class loser, well what the fuck does that mean?
Is the weekly fight at the boozer gonna be the only action you've seen?
Are you gonna be one of the big boys, well, we've seen it all before,
Muscles all akimbo as they boot down another door.
Will you see yourself as the hero as you boot in another head,
When you're just a pathetic victim of the media you've been fed.
You're lost in your own self pity, you've bought the system's lie,
They box us up and sit pretty as we struggle with the knots they tie.
Okay, so you're right about one thing, no-one's got the right to shit on you,
But what's the point of shitting on yourself, what's that gonna do?
Working class hero beats up middle class twit,
Media labels, system's shit.
When it looks like the people could score a win,
The system makes sure that the boot goes in.
Yeah it's the greatest working class rip off, oi, oi, oi
Just another fucking rip off, a fucking media ploy
It's the greatest working class rip off, oi, oi, oi
Ain't it just a rip off, ain't it just a rip off, ain't it just a rip off, oi
Punk attacked the barriers of colour, class and creed,
But look at how it is right now, do you really think you're freed?
Punk once stood for freedom, not violence, greed and hate,
Punk's got nothing to do with what you're trying to create.
Anarchy, violence, chaos? You mindless fucking jerks!
Can't you see you're talking about the way the system works?
Throughout our bloody history force has been the game,
The message that you offer is just the fucking same.
You're puppets to the system with your mindless violent stance,
That's right you fuckers, sneer at us cos we say "Give peace a chance"
Punk is dead you wankers, cos you killed it through and through,
In your violent world of chaos, what you gonna do?
Is Top of the Pops the way in which you show how much you care?
You take off now to the U.S.A. and spread your message there?
Well mouth and trousers, sonny boy, never changed a thing,
The only thing that'll ever change will be the song you sing,
Cos when you've bought your Rolls Royce car and your luxury penthouse flat
You'll be looking down your nose and saying "Punk, dear chap, what's that?"
You'll be the working class hero with your middle class dream,
And the world will be the same as the world has always been.
Punk's the people's music so you can stuff your ideas of class,
That's just the way the system keep you sitting on your arse.
Class, class, class, that's all you fucking hear,
Middle class, working class, I don't fucking care.
It's the greatest working class rip off, oi, oi, oi
What a fucking rip off, oi, oi, oi
It's the greatest human sell off, oi, oi, oi
Ain't it just a rip off, ain't it just a rip off, ain't it just a rip off, oi
Punk's the peoples music and I don't care where they're from,
Black or white, punk or skin, there ain't no right or wrong!
We're all just human beings, some of us rotten, some of us good.
You can stuff your false divisions cos together I know we could.
Beat the system, beat its rule
Ain't got no class, I ain't a fool
Beat the system, beat its law
Ain't got no religion cos I know there's more
Beat the system, beat its game
Ain't got no colour, we're all the same
People, people, not colour, class or creed
Don't destroy the people, destroy their power and their greed.
You can tell a master butcher by the way he selects the best, by the way he cuts off what you do want and by the way he cuts off what you don't want. By the way, there are butchers just like this taking so much care behind the scenes / The hungry pack must feed and something must die to satisfy that hunger / Like the politicians then, the politicians now see the world in the same arrogant simplistic terms, speaking of dominoes as if nations were mere blocks of wood.
*
Tired bored sad people, tired bored sad lives
Endless cars on endless roadways, endless shopfronts with endless lies
Even the winners, even the punters, tight lipped packages, think it's bad
Can't imagine a revolution could deal with anything so sad
Well it's all set up so you can't do it
No let up so you don't make it
All arranged so you can't have it
All enclosed so you won't take it
Set in little pockets of isolation
Separated by regulation
Crushed for product in a rich man's passion
Relative ration for the ration nation
Tear a bit, smash a bit, cause a little pain
That's a contribution then they build it up again
Fool yourself thinking it's a holyheld belief
When all the time it's just another light relief
Oh boredom psychological stunt
You never really feel it when you're up at the front
And it doesn't really matter where the hell it's going
As long as everybody has the hot blood flowing
Excitement and thrills
Will put off the ills
Radical frills
Docility pills
New wave, splash in the pan
Real music by dildo dan
Tired old discos, shame balam
Soddern modern christ, futurists again
Play the machine
Crank up the dream
We're just what we seem
Know what I mean?
But no-one can wipe out the last five years
So there's other ways of living than in supergloo pairs
Marry me darling? Fuck off, creep!
Tired and lonely, life on the cheap
Didn't plan it, but now we're very happy
Another poor fucker drowns in its nappy
Bakunin and bollocks and fun and farts
Hit the right fantasy and come up the charts
Treat people like shit and that's what you get.
Thank you, good evening and good night!
You're a wonderful audience!
We how do believe that force is justified from a Christian point of view, just conceive of certain political diplomatic conditions where by a limited exchange of one nuclear weapon on either side would result in the end of a war and peace / What a relief, at last our Holy Father has told us exactly where we stand.
*
Don't want a life of lies and pretence
Don't want to play at attack and defense
Just want my own life. I want to be free
So you can be you, and I can be me.
Respectable businessman smart and secure
Eat the fat of the land that they robbed from the poor
The butcher is smiling as he brings down the knife
As he cuts up the meat, he thinks of the wife
As eminent psychiatrists suffer paranoid fits
The ones they call mad have to pick up the bits
The preachers speaks calmly, says it's love that we lack
While his imaginary dagger is held at our back
Don't want a life of lies and pretence
Don't want to play at attack and defense
Just want my own life. I want to be free
So you can be you, and I can be me.
In bed you're the master or mistress, who cares?
Abusing each other as your work off your fears
Go climb a mountain, go fuck a scout
Avoidance of self is what it's about
Pretence and illusion to avoid who you are
Don't work on yourself, just polish the car
Switch on the telly afraid you might find
That as well as a body you've also a mind
Cheap glossy surface to cover the lie
Cheap easy answers to the what, where and why
Media drivel, yet you still watch the screen
Life ain't for real, it's a magazine
Conned from the start but hang onto the lies
You're a slave to the cathode ray paradise
You don't want the world, you just want the pics
Media junkies, you'd die for a fix
Don't want a life of lies and pretence
Don't want to play at attack and defense
Just want my own life. I want to be free
So you can be you, and I can be me.
So you say you'll regret it, well that's maybe a start
But it's so fucking easy to act out a part
Say you'll reject it, but still toe the line
Conning yourself that you're doing just fine
Anarchy, freedom, more games to play?
Fight war, not wars? Well it's something to say
Slogans and badges worn without thought
Instant identities so cheaply bought
Well freedom ain't product, it just isn't fun
You're looking for peace your work's just begun
Fighting oppression, aggression and hate
Fighting warmongers before it's too late
We've got to fight back to show that we care
For so many years we've been silenced by fear
Our lives have been ruined by liars and fools
The powerful and greedy who bind us with rules
Politicians and preachers who bind us with laws
Stolen our peace and given us wars
They've used us as means to their own violent ends
Turned us against each other, made foes out of friends
They've distorted, perverted, polluted our lives
They've brainwashed the world with their sordid beliefs
They seek to possess, control and corrupt
If it's freedom we're after, they've got to be stopped.
I think I'll have a gamble on the jackpot. She's going for the jackpot to try and win our jackpot price of the motor car and there it is, a two-door family-saloon 950cc in a yellow. Freashness and value under one roof. And a reassurance of an effective deodorant. There's no better safeguard against decay. So give your kids the treat. For home entertainment there's a 12 inch black and white portable televison set for family control. Finger Lickin' Chicken. That's the idea.
*
Buy now, pay as you go,
Buy now, say hello.
You can put a mortgage on your life
To enter Shoppers' Paradise.
A trade-in for your dignity
A lovely colour console T.V.
To watch and cherish as the days slip by,
And dream of the things that money can buy .
Brushed chrome shit, plastic crap,
My life and my vision is worth more than that.
Plate glass ghetto, shopping spree,
I'm no fucking commodity.
Lusting for objects, white wall refrigerator.
Cut off your fingers and buy a vibrator.
Get them while it lasts, your time is running out.
It's a new mink coal, that's what life's all about.
A new tank, a new bomb, awaits you in the store.
Is life all that shallow that you're reaching out for more?
Start planning now for a family plot.
A satin-lined bunker where your corpses can rot.
Well there's nothing for sale here, no day-glo gore.
And I ain't no waxed-up showroom whore.
I don't need carrots in front of my eyes.
Man made pre-fab, polyester lies.
Or sexy glossy adverts left on my mat.
I live with my needs, I don't need that.
I don't need a yacht to take a cruise.
Don't need a telephone in the loo.
Won't barter my soul for a rip-joint sale.
Excess is just another nouveau jail.
Don't want to grow fat off the fat of the land,
Or to choke on the greed of public command.
Thirty years with one foot in the grave.
Possession junkie, consumer slave.
If money buys freedom it's already spent.
Your object's the subject of my contempt.
Buy now, pay as you go,
Buy now, say hello.
Bye bye,
Bye bye.
They were shouting racist abuse at him, the next thing he knew he got a big brick thrown at him from about 10 or 15 yards / Well I don't, I don't really like them at all, no coloureds, I don't like them at all really - and we're not racialist either. I mean it's well known there's a certain amount of aggravation, what do you feel about that? Oh in Southall yea, they started on us, they was waiting for us, there's no doubt about it, we we're at a city concert, they weren't got to see no concert, they was just there. Doesn't it seem a bit pointless? People are just beating each other up. Well, I mean I can't, there's nothing, I can't do nothing about that, I mean it's life, ain't it?
*
Rival Tribal Revel Rebel (Pt. 2)
Cor blimey
Cor blimey guvnor I'm the big 'un,
Cop an eyeful of this muscular arm.
Being tough'n'tough is my kind of fun
But, of course I never do no harm.
Ain't my fault I like cracking bones,
Gives me a funny kind of thrill,
And I can't help smiling at the pathetic moans,
When I go in for the kill.
Tribal wars are raging, there's a battlefield on the street,
There's games to play
And hell to pay
When the rival tribal rebels meet.
Why can't people just leave me be?
Can't help doing what I do,
I'll do anybody who ain't like me
So forget your what, why or who.
I ain't got no purpose and I don't give a fuck,
I never asked for this life.
If you're looking for reasons you're out of luck,
I'll show you the point with my knife.
Tribal wars are raging, no-one's safe out on their own,
The gangs are about
And they scream and shout,
So you'd better not be caught alone.
I did it cos there ain't nothing else to do,
Nowhere'll let me in..
It ain't my fault I want to hurt and screw
So I've destroyed every place where I've been.
I had trouble at the local so they won't serve me there,
I just had to chivvy up this bloke,
Left him with a smile cut from ear to ear.
But the bleeder never got the joke.
I used to have a bird but I put her up the spout
So I had to tell her where to get off.
Well, you can't blame me if I want to get about,
If you're a man you've gotta be tough.
I used to go down the cafe for tea
But my boot got attacked by the door,
So now it ain't open for the likes of me
And we're back on the streets like before.
Tribal wars are raging, our heroes are standing tall,
But the truth of the matter,
If you cut out the patter,
Is that pride always comes before the fall.
They can stand on the corner
With their violence and their hate,
Stand there and fester
Till they've left it too late
To realise it's themselves they've put their on the spot
Cos they've wasted the one and only life that they've got.
Tribal wars are raging, everyone's acting out bad parts,
Hey big man, take a look at yourself it's in the mirror that the real war starts.
The first nuclear bomb exceeded by a thousand times the explosive force of any weapon ever made before. Instead of one nuclear weapon there are now over 50,000. More than a million times the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb. Four tons of high explosive for each of the four thousand million men, women and children on this planet / I think it's money well spent and I can't see what's wrong with it / Those who are obedient will stay put, doubtless stiffened in thier resolve by the knowledge that if they flee, no authority elsewhere will give them food or shelter.
*
If they drop a bomb on us, we fucking deserve it,
We know we got it coming, we fucking deserve it,
They got a comfy set up, they'll try and preserve it.
We had the early warning, we can sit and observe it.
Sliding down guidelines, cradle to the grave,
All the willing saviours see that we behave.
Everybody knows they're there, see them all around.
Lots of little people who'll put you in the ground.
Well, take a burning issue and stuff it up your arse.
They've fucked you with a furrowed brow, shitting broken glass,
Marching down the 'dilly to demonstrate again,
While the men who plan the holocaust are pissed out of their brain.
Brain of pasty people, who'll bomb it all to fuck,
You can be a victim or they'll let you try your luck,
Pass it on to others, ship it down the line,
Leave the world in ruins, you know we've got the time.
If they drop a bomb on us, we fucking deserve it,
We know we got it coming, we fucking deserve it,
They got a comfy set up, they'll try and preserve it.
We had the early warning, we can sit and observe it.
Cop-outs look for motives... Freudian analyst,
Come on, Mr. Horror, what do you make of this?
Won't find many people without their rationale,
Any handy concept to hang upon the wall,
Soldier's got his enemy, police have got the state,
Family have home sweet home, SS got red tape.
MP's got his duty, priest has got his sin,
Everybody finds a hole, to drop somebody in.
Seeking out wisdom in the ironies of life,
Weighing up subtleties, fiddling with the ties,
No-one else decides for you, whether to or not,
You make an easy target if you're running on the spot.
If they drop a bomb on us, we fucking deserve it,
We know we got it coming, we fucking deserve it,
They got a comfy set up, they'll try and preserve it.
We had the early warning, we can sit and observe it.
Someone's been training, flexing their muscles,
Getting in practice, irrelevant tussles,
Given a march, or a quiet Sunday demo,
They wait till the state put the finger on you.
Peeping through a frown, your humanity in rags,
Playing the loser till the sense of purpose sags,
They can deal with heroes, watch the bleeders run,
It's only your head keeps the target from the gun.
No-one else decides for you, whether to or not
You make an easy target if you're running on the spot ...
No, I wouldn't give up meat - And if thirty million people a year are dying of hunger or of hunger related diseases? - No, I still wouldn't give up meat / While people starve elsewhere, nine tenth of the grain grown in the United States is fed to animals so that we can eat meat. The result is that we feed pigs better than many third world countries feed people / Well a lot of them should get enough food shouldn't they? What do they spend their money on? / If they starve, they starve ain't it. It's up to them. That's where they put themselves ain't it.
*
Sentimental (White Feathers)
Feathers burn so easily, the cat is blinded in the garden, last vision the lark is flame.
The cattle shed gives off the smell of sunday kitchen, the gentle eye, the dispensable perfection.
Before the flash takes two weeks' food, pile the sacks of earth and hide. All of us here know it, we grew it.
Fighting amongst ourselves, leaving bits of flesh on barbed wire, a little blood on the floor.
Locks and bars across the door, well versed in violation, our children beat each other in the garden.
Our failure to accept the earth, we talk of love but push it to the edge. Push it to the edge.
This is no natural aggression composing death, I am afraid for beauty when I see the fist,
The perfect hand that turns against itself, the perfect hand that holds a gun or wields a butcher's blade, or leads to
death,
Leads to death the used-up bull or incarcerates the hopeless fool or takes the forest with a single flame
Leaves the nest an empty shell. Human kind condemns the hunting beast yet their own choice leaves behind such ragged
meat.
The military dream of blood, their sweet wine flowing in the veins of men who work towards our bloody end.
They fly Enola gaily, give birth to this waiting... waiting, give us the reality of our hatred, give the earth nothing.
Melting, goats dead on the green, dying lambs bleating by the wire... three last days on the earth, I lay down to die
in the grass.
It's fear that provokes nuclear war, fear that fuels the arms race. America seeks to stay in front, Russia won't fall behind. Although each side can destroy the other many times over, both refuse to call a halt. It is in Europe where NATO plans to counter a theoretical Soviet assault with nuclear weapons if necessary. Flexible Response it's called / We depend for our export trade upon selling one thousand two hundred millions pounds worth a year of arms (and that's pure arms, that's not the computers that go into repression) / It's not just the biggest epidemic of our times, but it won't be cured until the patient recognises that he's sick.
*
We're looking for a better world, but what do we see?
Just hatred, poverty, aggression, misery.
So much money spent on war
When three quarters of the world is so helplessly poor.
Major General Despair sits at his desk,
Planning a new mode of attack,
He's quite unconcerned about chance or risk,
The Major General's a hard nut to crack.
Oh yes, he designs a cruise missile,
Tactically sound, operationally O.K.,
While the starving crawl onto the deathpile,
They can't avoid their fate another day.
Attack on the mind, but he calls it defence,
But I ask you again who's it for?
Do the starving millions who don't stand a chance
Hope to benefit by his stupid war?
Babies crippled with hunger before they could walk,
Mothers with dry breasts cry dry tears,
And meanwhile Major General Despair gives a talk
On increasing the war budget over the years.
How can they do it, these men of steel,
How can they plot destruction, pain?
Is it the only way thatthey can feel,
By killing again and again?
Is it some part of themselves that has died
That permits them to plan as they do?
Or is it us that is dead, do we simply hide
From the responsibility to stop what they do?
There's so many of us, yet we let them have their way,
At this moment they're plotting and planning.
We've got to rise up to take their power away,
To save the world that they're ruining.
They're destroying the world with their maggot-filled heads,
Death, pain and mutilation,
They've got the responsibility of millions of dead.
Yet they're still bent on destruction.
The generals and politicians who advocate war should be made to wade in the truth of it,
They should spend sleepless nights shivering with fear and by day time should crawl in the deathpit.
They'll find the truth of what they've done there,
Festering corpses they and their kind made,
Eyeless skulls that endlessly stare
Having seen the truth of military trade.
The earth was our home, the wind and the air,
The blue sky, the grass and the trees,
But these masters of war, what do they care?
Only sentiments, these.
It's our world but through violence they took it away,
Took dignity, happiness, pride.
They took all the colours and changed them to grey
With the bodies of millions that died.
They destroy real meaning through their stupid games,
Make life a trial of fear.
They destroy what values we have with their aims,
Make us feel it's wrong if we care.
Well, we do care, it's our home, they've been at it too long,
If it's a fight they want, it's beginning.
Throughout history, we've been expected to sing their tired song
But now it's our turn to lead the singing...
Fight war, not wars,
Make peace, not war.
Fight war, not wars,
We know you've heard it before.
Fight war, not wars,
Make peace, not war.
Fight war, not wars,
Make peace, not war.
Fight war, not wars,
Make love, not war.
Fight war, not wars,
Make love, not war.
1 - 2 - 3 - 4
We don't want your fucking war.
1 - 2 - 3 - 4
We don't want your fucking war.
1 - 2 - 3 - 4
We don't want your fucking war.
*
War is a confirmation of the imposed reality in which we exist. A constant violent reminder of the lengths to which those that impose that reality will go. We are prisoners within that reality until we create our own.
We don't have civilisation anymore. We have a state of barbarism. A state of barbarism in which we are daily, hourly, threatening with annihilation our fellow citizens. Now, looking at you I know one thing, we can win, we can win. I want you to sense your own strength.
A MESSAGE TO THATCHER, HER GOVERNMENT, THOSE WHO SUPPORT HER AND ALL THOSE WHO ARE WILLING TO SEND LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE OF WAR.
We are asked for war, not in the innocence of our birth were we aware of it. We never asked for war, nor in the struggle to realisation did we feel that there was a need for it. We never asked for war, nor in the joyful colours of our childhood were we conscious of its darkness.
*
'The sky is empty and it's turning different shades of colour,
It never did before and we never asked for war.
My mind is empty and my body different shades of turture;
It never did before and we never asked for war.
The buildings are empty and the countryside is wasteland,
It never did before and we never asked for war.
The playgrounds are empty and the children limblesss corpses,
It never did before and we never asked for war.
No-one is moving and no doves fly here.
No-one is thinking and no doves fly here.
No-one remembers beyond all this fear
No doves fly here.'
The Mob. 1982
*
We never asked for war; this glib, horrific indifference, that leads young men, barely old enough to have experienced anything of the joy of life, to kill and be killed, is something that you have imposed on us. You snatch these young bodies from the brain-washing cradle of the schoolroom to be maimed, mutilated and slaughtered in the cold grave of your cynicism. You tear these young bodies from their homes to die in the foreign soil of your barren, blood-stained minds. How perverted you are, how distorded and twisted, how divorced from the simple joy of existence. You dare to threaten the one life that we have with your pained violence. In the crystal light of our lives you are the darkest shadow.
Each body that you shovel into the mass graves of history is another darling boy that you have bled, another precious life that you have defiled, another act of creation that you have dared to violate. What is birth to you but another rag that you may wring and slap and beat and discard? What is life to you but another plastic body-bag into which you defecate? What is death to you but the disfigured bodies of our children upon whose angel faces you smear your rancid droppings?
How grand you must feel as you chart out your battle-fields; each feature on that map deascribes the desolation of your mind. How powerful you must feel as you order the plunder and rape of those battlefields; each bayonet that turns in some contracting stomach is the pointing finger of your hand. How omnipotent you must feel as those young men stumble in the death of those battlefields; each death is part of you that died.
How glorious war. How rich the experience of war.
Those castaway boys, deranged, dismembered, crying, homeless, are the reality of your horror, the actuality of your insanity. That horror is the heritage that you create. That insanity is the tradition that you leave to those as yet unborn. The frightened corpses of the living are shadowed by your arrogance. The limbless corpses of the death are devorded in your lust for power. The maggots that inch away at the rotting flesh are your true compatriots, you keep them fed, they are your true companions. Those bodies were my brothers that you have destroyed. That battlefield is my home that you have burnt in your fire.
Your minds are filth. Your lives are corruption. You are the walking dead, the parasites who bleed this earth of ours, that dry the waters from the river-beds and give us blood in its place.
YOU STAND ACCUSED OF PREMEDITATED, CALCULATED AND COLD-BLOODED MURDER. YOUR CRIMES ARE WELL DOCUMENTED. YOUR GUILT IS THE RESPONSABILITY THAT ONE DAY YOU WILL HAVE TO REALISE.
Crass, 3rd June 1982.
(First published in International Anthem 5 - War; Text by Penny Rimbaud)
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Crass
Well Forked - But Not Dead
CHRIST - THE ALBUM
Christ - The Album was recorded and mixed at Southern Studios, London, between July 1981 and February 1982. All material was engineered by John Loder and produced by Crass. The poster was painted by G. Sus and the overall package was designed by Crass at Existencil Press. Type-setting was by Bread'n'Roses to whom we are most graceful.
Crass.
Steve Ignorant -- vocals
Joy de Vivre -- vocals on Birth Control and Sentiment
Peeve Libido -- backing vocals
Phil Free -- lead guitar and synthesizer of Sentiment
$ri Hari Nana B.A. -- rhythm sitar
Sybil Right -- bass
Elvis Rimbaud -- drums and radio
G. Sus -- tape collages
Strings on Reality Whitewash by Paul Ellis and The Southern Symphonietta.
WELL FORKED - BUT NOT DEAD
The live recording was made on a 4 track machine on the 9th June 1981 at the 100 Club, London by Real Time Music. The voice-over on Roxy is by Mitch from the long-lost Radio Caroline. The Sound Of One Hand is an adaptation of a traditional Japanese Zen story. Hearth-Throb Of The Mortuary and I Can't Stand It were our first efforts in a studio, a small 4 track in Soho, made in summer 1977. Hearth-Throb was later played on some pirate radio show, the name of which none of us remember, and it is from that show that this track has been taken. The lead guitar on Hearth-Throb and I Can't Stand It is played by Steve Herman who was in the band for its first few months. The Bomb tape is an adaptation of a tape produced by Doubleday Multimedia to whom we are most graceful. The end of Securicor and the beginning of I Can't Stand It are from a cassette recording of a gig we did at the Action Space Drill Hall, London on Nov. 16th 1977. The insert tapes, Arlington 73, etc., were made throughout the period that we were recording and mixing the studio album.
Peeve Libido is on lead vocals on Nagasaki Nightmare, Darling, Berkertex Bribe and Shaved Women.
WITH LOVE TO STEVE HERMAN WHO DIED ON THE FOURTH ON FEBRUARY 1989.