England

The whole population of England

The whole population of England
Gallops like a herd of mustang through the canyon
Chased by a few cowboys shooting guns
In one last bid for the wide-open places
Before the meat factory consumes them

The whole population of England
Is singing one song together
Listened to by no one, nowhere
I am the dead man singing
A sound they hear if they listen
In their dreams alone at night

England is taken

England is taken, England is gone
Imprisoned in a car compound
We will never see her again

We spend our lives in slavery
What little we had of England has been sold
We work like ants and we are expendable
In exchange for our futile existence
In exchange for our fragile security
We have sold England

“Here take this piece
I want to be famous;
There take that piece
I want to be rich”

There is plenty for everyone
For the greedy
For the foreigners
For the Americans (apologies)
For the middle class
Money buys everything
Even England

On the last night of the proms inside they sing
Britain never will be slaves
But outside they are already rattling their chains

The round table of legend

The round table of legend
Was left outside for the council to collect
Children smashed it up
Tramps used the parts to build a fire

The round table of legend
Became more than just a table
It became England
It became the English way

The round table of legend
We have all wanted to take our seats there
To feel a part of the government
To feel a part of England

The giants are using England

The giants are using England
They place one foot upon her backbone
And move the other foot across onto the world

The one world of the politicians is a carcass
”Wherever the carcass is
There the vultures will be also”

England will you live to see your freedom
Englishman and women will you live to know your freedom
“All you need is love”

Shakespeare in the Empirical age

Shakespeare in the Empirical age
Became a gift and was exchanged for gold
Shakespeare in the Industrial Age
Became a nightingale singing on a coal slag
Shakespeare in the academic world
Became a headless doll for them to play with
Shakespeare in the digital age
Has become a man to tell lies about

England does no one care about our tears

England does no one care about our tears
That so many soldiers have shed
Along with their lives on foreign conquests
Where has it all gone? What did it pay for?

Some silk, some jewellery, some spices
And in return the responsibility to foreign shores
Small Island with so many great minds
The sea around you turns to blood and diamonds

England does no one want to know about our tears
That covers the land, the rain-soaked earth
Do Englishmen turn away back to their living rooms?
Trying not to think about the pat
The days of power and glory gone like smoke from a gun
But the sorrows remain in a million hidden lives
The treasure that death leaves behind in the hearts of children

England, I feel there’s something wrong

England, I feel there’s something wrong
As if I sleep on the wrong side of the bed
As if I were left-handed
As if my cupboard drawer won’t open and when it does it’s empty
As if I spend my career listening to the wrong people
As if I try too hard to fit in with the rogues of the earth
As if I were being made to be something I’m not
Yes England that seems true
It’s as if I were being made to be something I don’t want to be
And it’s crippling me inside

Reluctant hero, what choice is there but to follow the leader into the fray
With his old political ambitions
Maybe he’ll scrape back some of the old glory for us
I know the desire for glory is still strong
You can lift the whole table cloth by a pinch of the fingers
And remove it from the tabletop
And that is tempting you beyond endurance
Yes and that’s how I feel, like a crumb that’s gone with the tabletop

But England, look at yourself now before it’s too late
Restore the market place and the corner shop
Bring back the pubs and the art school
Roll up the motorway they will never stretch as far as America
Put some sanity back into your urban places
Give back to the children what you’ve taken away
Give everyone a home to be proud of
Not a soup kitchen in a rabbit hutch
Not a layer cake melting in the sun
Do not squeeze people in your homes with their own walls
Where you have to go and pee side by side like cattle
A throwback to the militarisation of the country
That rode on the back of industrialisation
That took away our liberty in return for fast food and plastic cups

England why do you herd us like cattle
With the same technique you use to keep farms
Why do you farm us like farm animals
Don’t lie and say it’s not true
Don’t give us the statistics, the polls, the census
Don’t say things like British people are better off today than ever
I’ve been in the rush hour that never ends
I see the rat-race at home time
The overcrowded buses and trains
The flight out of the country on holiday
Who can blame us for wanting to leave you?
We’ve spent to long-standing in a que

Managerial England

Managerial England
I’m tired of your puppet show
Where you sit at large tables
In judgment of us all

England what has happened to you

England what has happened to you
Your roots are slowly being destroyed
By the Church, the class system and political self-preservation

England belongs to its people
That used to work in the fields all year
That was taken to work in factories and the wars
Now they think you don’t even exist

The land has been enslaved by industry
There is nowhere you can go that isn’t owned
There is little land freedom for its people

Little children are afraid to go into the fields
Couples are afraid to go off the pathways
Old people are trapped indoors by social services
The nation is being twisted out of shape

From the Orkneys to the Isle of White
Freedom is interpreted as a commodity
Well thank you parliament so good of you
To allow us to live on our own land
You who sent the servant girl to die in Australia
I walk through the English countryside

I walk through the English countryside
It is twilight when I come upon a small village
I walk through the street and then I realise
They are not houses that stand side by side
They are souls dream-like in the moonlight

I wander in and out of the silent standing houses
Listen I can hear a whisper of a real voice
On the other side of those reflective images
Look and I see dreamlike spirits flash by the windows
The windows of people’s souls

The roving clouds of England

The roving clouds of England
Of different shapes and sizes
Different moods and guises
No one understands

Like the crowds below them
Forming and dispersing
Their laughter and their cursing
Forms like shifting sands

England, where is your soul

England, where is your soul
Under a motorway
Under a housing estate
Chased by foxhounds
Is it a Saxon design
Buried under the ground
Where the thunderclouds go to when they’re spent
Is it the imprint of a long-forgotten forest

The laughter of the soul of England
The tears of the soul of England
The wild heart that hasn’t been seen for a hundred years or more

It’s as if no one loves her
Her people stay indoors
Her people escape to foreign lands

Somewhere, long ago
Something’s rote in the earth
In a strange forgotten language
Here is the heart of the land
And tried to preserve for all time
With an ancient seal
With an ancient song

Where are those people?
Where is the heart of England?
Where is the soul of England?

A people wounded still by history
Dangers in the darkness of a high cloud
Circling around across the country

A people of machinery and little houses
A people swamped by the temptations of the old empire
A people cut off from their own ancestors
A people lost in the darkness of god shadows

Tied up in polythene
Returned to the factory that remade them

A strip by strip of land
Was sold off to great Babylon
The power of the world Babylon
Who brought their souls with its promises?
A spirit turned into matter
A love rolled out into celluloid
Put behind you the engine, put behind you the wars
Ask of ourselves this now
Where is the soul of England?

The animals and the birds have left you
All that’s left are the foxes and the crows
The weather has turned against you
With the storms and fires and the quaking earth
The governments slide towards the edge of the whirlpool
The state religion’s like fat-bellied cows
And your people swell in numbers like leaves on a branch
They eat, sleep, marry, divorce
And every day the bad news stings them like the stings of ants and wasps

England, so unilateral

England, so unilateral
So lazy, so hungry
For regulations
To take the place of thought

At this time of the end
Sticking to regulations
In denial of them
Like a three-wheeled train
On an icy track

What support is this?
A broken mirror of words
Taped back together
Dangerous and limp in the hands

You cannot make the iron
Mix with the clay
Not even with these regulations
That spawns out of your belly

This ticket machine of rules
That you gave to the bus conductor
But no even the bus
Has come from a sausage machine

England so fix and fit
So lazy towards visions
That you give to your baker
To roll out and divide
Into easy bites