Robert Wyatt Album

There is a kind of compromise you are master of
Your endless gentle nudging left us polarised
It's hard to talk to enemies – and we are enemies
What we had in common makes it even worse
You're proud of being middle class (meaning upper class)
You say you're self sufficient (but you don't dig your own coal)

I think that what you're frightened of more than anything
Is knowing you need workers more than they need you
"A herd of independent minds" Chomsky got it right
You're jogging into battle waving old school ties

There are degrees of amnesia, ways to forget
Ways to remember all the good that you've done
And if you can't get a witness remind yourselves
Nobody's just perfectly good all the time
And if you killed all those redskins long, long ago
Well, they'd all be dead now anyway, anyway
Don't let that ghost disconcert you – the lord will provide
A nice little headstone for the brave Cherokee

So let's have no reservations, let's have a clean sweep
Clearing the way for the land of the free
Let's hear it for civilisation once more
Build your aryan empire in peace

Timor
East Timor
Who's your fancy friend, Indonesia?
What did Gillespie do to help you?

[No lyrics]

They say the working class is dead, we're all consumers now
They say that we have moved ahead – we're all just people now
There's people doing 'frightfully well' there's others on the shelf
But never mind the second kind this is the age of self

They say we need new images to help our movement grow
They say that life is broader based as if we didn't know
While Martin J. and Robert M. play with printer's ink
The workers 'round the world still die for Rio Tinto Zinc

And it seems to me if we forget our roots and where we stand
The movement will disintegrate like castles built on sand

Beyond the dotted line
Over the border
Out of control
Behind the dotted line
South of the border
Beyond the pale
Going too far

Those foreigners are at it again
When will they learn to fight like our men?
There's nothing new under the mirror
And it's time for one more bedtime story
Get beauty sleep for morning glory
How can I rise if you don't fall?

And as history slips out of view
Bated breath for the nine o'clock news
reassembled right before your very eyes:
Innuendo, rumour and lies

Endless fun and games
Steal a headline, name some names
We're so proud that our press feel so free
To manipulate them, you and me

And as each campaign begins
To absolve us of our sins
I see freedom sold by the yard
It's so easy – why make it hard?

It's so easy to decide on a name
It's a name caller's game
It's so easy to look down from above
Helicopter vision
Get the picture when you're outside the frame
Retrospective my eye

Call it art and you can say what you like
It's a name caller's game
Your perspective describes where I stand
Out of line, out of mind
Calling myopia 'focus', of course,
Makes it easier still
Gharbzadegi means nothing to me
Westernitis to you

...We get so out of touch
Words take the place of meaning

Poor little Alfie trying to draw
Trying to draw

Poor Little Alfie trying to sleep
Trying to sleep