-- The Trouble With Normal --
Cockburn
Cockburn
30 June 1981. Toronto, Canada.
Strikes across the frontier and strikes for higher wage
Planet lurches to the right as ideologies engage
Suddenly it's repression, moratorium on rights
What did they think the politics of panic would invite?
Person in the street shrugs -- "Security comes first"
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse
Callous men in business costume speak computerese
Play pinball with the Third World trying to keep it on its knees
Their single crop starvation plans put sugar in your tea
And the local Third World's kept on reservations you don't see
"It'll all go back to normal if we put our nation first"
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse
Fashionable fascism dominates the scene
When ends don't meet it's easier to justify the means
Tenants get the dregs and landlords get the cream
As the grinding devolution of the democratic dream
Brings us men in gas masks dancing while the shells burst
The trouble with normal is it always gets worse
-- Worry Too Much--
Mark Heard
it's the demolition derby
it's the sport of the hunt
proud tribe in full war-dance
it's the slow smile that the bully gives the runt
it's the force of inertia
it's the lack of constraint
it's the children out playing in the rock garden
all dolled-up in black hats and war paint
sometimes it feels like bars of steel
i cannot bend with my hands
oh - i worry too much
somebody told me that i worry too much
it's these sandpaper eyes
it's the way they rub the luster from what is seen
it's the way we tell ourselves that all these things are normal
till we can't remember what we mean
it's the flicker of our flames
it's the friction born of living
it's the way we beat a hot retreat
and heave our smoking guns into the river
sometimes it feels like bars of steel
i cannot bend with my hands
oh - i worry too much
somebody told me that i worry too much
it's the quick-step march of history
the vanity of nations
it's the way there'll be no muffled drums
to mark the passage of my generation
it's the children of my children
it's the lambs born in innocence
it's wondering if the good i know
will last to be seen by the eyes of the little ones
Mark Heard
it's the demolition derby
it's the sport of the hunt
proud tribe in full war-dance
it's the slow smile that the bully gives the runt
it's the force of inertia
it's the lack of constraint
it's the children out playing in the rock garden
all dolled-up in black hats and war paint
sometimes it feels like bars of steel
i cannot bend with my hands
oh - i worry too much
somebody told me that i worry too much
it's these sandpaper eyes
it's the way they rub the luster from what is seen
it's the way we tell ourselves that all these things are normal
till we can't remember what we mean
it's the flicker of our flames
it's the friction born of living
it's the way we beat a hot retreat
and heave our smoking guns into the river
sometimes it feels like bars of steel
i cannot bend with my hands
oh - i worry too much
somebody told me that i worry too much
it's the quick-step march of history
the vanity of nations
it's the way there'll be no muffled drums
to mark the passage of my generation
it's the children of my children
it's the lambs born in innocence
it's wondering if the good i know
will last to be seen by the eyes of the little ones
1 comment:
Funny story: I can write poetry well (according to other people), but generally don't like reading it.
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