At Home with John and Debbie

Just now, location management announced a 2 minute silence at 11:00 to mark Rememberance Sunday, although it’s Friday. Gary pointed out that the 7/7 victims got 3 minutes…

By 11:01 I had decided to use the remaining minute productively, so I looked up the lyrics to Crass’s “How Does It Feel”, addressed to Thatcher at the time of the Falklands conflict, but surely appropriate to most wars?

When you woke this morning you looked so rocky-eyed,
Blue and white normally, but strange ringed like that in black.
It doesn’t get much better, your voice can get just ripped up shooting in vain,
Maybe someone hears what you say, but you’re still on your own at night.
You’ve got to make such a noise to understand the silence.
Screaming like a jackass, ringing ears so you can’t hear the silence
Even when it’s there - like the wind seen from the window,
Seeing it, but not being touched by it.

(We never asked for war, nor 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 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.)

HOW DOES IT FEEL?
How does it feel to be the mother of a thousand death?
Young boys rest now, cold graves in cold earth.
How does it feel to be the mother of a thousand death?
Sunken eyes, lost now; empty sockets in futile death.

Your arrogance has gutted these bodies of life,
Your deceit fooled them that it was worth the sacrifice.
Your lies persuaded people to accept the wasted blood,
Your filthy pride cleansed you of the doubt you should have had.
You smile in the face of the death cause you are so proud and vain,
Your inhumanity stops you from realising the pain
That you inflicted, you determines, you created, you ordered -
It was your decision to have those young boys slaughtered.

You never wanted peace or solution,
From the start you lusted after war and destruction.
Your blood-soaked reason ruled out other choices,
Your mockery gagged more moderate voices.
So keen to play your bloody part, so impatient that your war be fought.
Iron Lady with your stone heart so eager that the lesson be taught
That you inflicted, you determines, you created, you ordered -
It was your decision to have those young boys slaughtered.

How does it feel to be the mother of a thousand death?
Young boys rest now, cold graves in cold earth.
How does it feel to be the mother of a thousand death?
Sunken eyes, lost now; empty sockets in futile death.

Throughout our history you and your kind
Have stolen the young bodies of the living
To be twisted and torn in filthy war.
What right have you to defile those birth?
What right have you to devour that flesh?
What right to spit on hope with the gory madness
That you inflicted, you determines, you created, you ordered -
It was your decision to have those young boys slaughtered.

How does it feel to be the mother of a thousand death?
Young boys rest now, cold graves in cold earth.
How does it feel to be the mother of a thousand death?
Sunken eyes, lost now; empty sockets in futile death.

You accuse us of disrespect for the dead,
But it was you who slaughtered out of national pride.
Just how much did you care? What respect did you have
As you sent those bodies to their communal grave?
You buried them rough-handed, they’d given you their all,
That once living flesh defiled in the hell
That you inflicted, you determines, you created, you ordered -
It was your decision to have those young boys slaughtered.

You use those deaths to achieve your ends still,
Using the corpses as a moral blackmail.
You say “Think of what those young men gave”
As you try to bind us in your living death,
Yet we do think of them, ice cold and silence
In the snow covered moorlands, stopped by the violence
That you inflicted, you determines, you created, you ordered -
It was your decision to have those young boys slaughtered.

How does it feel to be the mother of a thousand death?
Young boys rest now, cold graves in cold earth.
How does it feel to be the mother of a thousand death?

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!
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 You can stop your fucking war!

Punk rock!

This entry was posted on Friday, November 11th, 2005 at 11:07 and is filed under Soapbox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.