In the War Zone: Book Two Part 1
This virtual album side contains tracks 9 through 14. The sliding cursor is a virtual tonearm. Voices from the past warn us about the present.
This virtual album side contains tracks 9 through 14. The sliding cursor is a virtual tonearm. Voices from the past warn us about the present.
Tr9- Incident #5: The Indictment
One of the tougher mission objectives of this PRCA was to summarize five days of hearings down to one and a quarter minutes and set it to music.
Tr10- Chapter 5: Waiting for the Castles to Fall
Lyrics...
Come and stand with us
and hold this fort til dawn
We'll table our disgust
and give our brain and brawn
In here the faithful wait
for God's point man to arrive
while others postulate
that all can stay alive
Come and stand with us
and hold this fort til dawn
With either side in charge
the other is under siege
Either way we get a world
that no one can believe
Partisans hope to win for keeps
with vitriol and taunts
Until then we shall defend
this fortress no one wants
When can we get on with it?
When the castles fall
When will there be room for all?
When the castles fall
When will it be enough?
When the castles fall
Who can tell it like it is
when the castles fall?
There will be no reckoning
No one up against the wall
All will be forgiven
When the castles fall
Two scoops for everyone
When the castles fall
Tr11- Chapter 6: Gravity and the Plight of the Working Man
Chapter Six is the palindromic sibling of Chapter Eight.
Lyrics...
Which way is up?
Which way is down?
From Pittsburgh to Duluth
we sought an azimuth
We were safe inside our dens
but not from the wily Fox
He could sneak into the pens
by talking from a box
He polished shiny turds
with smooth gritty words
the Fox said
"Gravity don't make no sound
Gravity won't let you down"
Shadows march along the wall
with shouldered arms enough for all
Jutting chins and rolling eyes
that spin from Al Phaboy and Missile Thighs
What's going down? Who's going down?
Down is up and up is down
Gravity will crush this town
Which way is up is up to
the one who wears the crown
should it be a heavy anchor
or a levitating clown
A repulsive magnetism wins
as the moral compass spins, the Fox said
"Gravity don't make no sound
Gravity won't let you down"
A set-filling ditty from 1979.
This sixth incarnation is supposed to be a sort of bluesy plum loco.
Lyrics...
Words for sale today here's how to order
Got words and facts and themes
and pictures of your dreams
Get some try some you can trust them
and believe
Rest upon our shoulders My Great Leader
While we carry on the burden on our backs
We will feed you follow and fear you
It's a bargain that we can't afford a miss
So we took some well-read dark upstarts
and errant sons and nailed them to
the fact transmitting tower
It said by word and deed concede
here's how to order now
Can't think about anything right now
Can't think about anything else
Don't want to go down in pieces
Just want to go down in peace
We're gonna get lost in space
We're gonna get torn asunder
I'll not buy your pitch today so sue me
Can't lose my freedom to the barrel of a song
We'll surpass your new world order
and we'll claim a space where everything
is up for debate
Tr14- Chapter 8: Soupline to Paradise
Back in the early '80's, my pal Frank (alias Sir Bubbles Varoom) had a fascination with abandon car plants in Detroit and books and stories about the Depression. He took polaroid photos of rusty buildings around Zug Island and then headed to the local bar to get more smashed. All that stopped when he fell through a rotted floor and filled his legs with pins and pain. Except for the getting smashed part. He favored little red brick bars near the Rouge River plants around shift change time. He liked to watch the workers. He learned to emulate their walk and dressed like them. It was one phase of a serious long-term Hemmingway-complex.
Along the way, he wrote song lyrics. They were mostly bits and pieces on cocktail napkins or little promotional flyers from a bank lobby. I would collect them when possible from the floor of his car. That way I could do what he never did… finish something. I stitched something together that finally met with his approval. He insisted it be clumsy and ungrammatical because that is how they talk down at the little red brick bar. I can tidy it up now because he can't stop me.
He also had a fascination with those two tiny ladies that lived in a box in the old monster movies.
Narration by Fiz Weld
Lyrics...
How can we be so cruel?
How can we be so kind?
Why can't we do what we're told?
why is our share served out in the cold?
In this land so pressurized
by tickling fingers on invisible hands
The New Deals of the demigods
always keep the soupline manned
We are handed out a dole
in a state-issued bowl
Get in line and pay the toll
to receive your own soul
The lesson that we preach
is life is not a peach
How can we be so cruel?
How can we be so kind?
Who bakes this corporate pie?
I never bargained for you
You never bargained for me
Let's write it off as manifest destiny
Work the line! Stamp it! Shape it!
Cold polled steel! For product and progress!
Mother's breast-assembly line-animal machine
Now don't confuse it!
Tow the line read the sign
Get in line this is fine
Mechno-facture each artifact as a prayer
and a hymn to our steel sky
Ambition is a sinful lust
stay in line in God we trust
Here's a slice of moldy bread
stay in line better time's ahead
If life is not a peach
if the pie is out of reach
if a lie is what we preach
with excuses that we teach
For that we live and breathe
For that we must concede
Our surrender leads to victory
on the soupline to paradise
On to Book Two part 2 or
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