Unbowed
My head might be bloody but it’ll stay unbowed
And my voice will be carried on the back of clouds
And the rain’ll tell the world that I took a vow
Never to be silent. I walk alone in the crowd.
A life is not a life. It’s just a weapon of war
Cheaper than the junk sold at a dollar store
Every second of your life scripted by the press-corps
And the new world motto is “We just want more.”
A life is not a life, it’s just another statistic
Born be bartered, alive to be twisted
You have no value unless you’ve been conscripted
Expiry dates are ready, stamped, sealed and listed.
The 11th of September Nineteen Seventy Three,
Why was Popular Unity replaced in Chile,
Imported dictatorships killed Democracy
Why were Chilean Companies owned by ITT?
The 11th of September two thousand and one
And Power still flows from the barrel of a gun
We conjure enemies. Armageddon has begun
Green is the new threat and the Red is undone.
The spark was in Tunisia, now the fire’s in Wall Street
Every heart is Tahrir. Can you hear the drumbeat?
The counter-revolutionaries dance offbeat
And the underground rebels hide like mesquite.
People rise up but the markets push them down
And Gentrification changes whole towns
Inconvenient revolutions need be shut down
Cos the one per cent can’t afford meltdown.
The weapons industry is manufacturing wars
Dumping toxic waste by the ocean shore
The rot has set in and it’s eating at the core
But we’ll do nothing. We’ve seen it all before.
The dreams of progress and the illusions of hope
Gift wrapped and delivered. They’re the modern day dope
Our children live on vouchers. Single mothers can’t cope
And then they tell us; keep the banks afloat!
The clash of civilisations that’s a ticking time bomb
And the Wolfowitz doctrine is the ultimate con
From Baghdad to Caracas, from Kabul to Freetown
Everybody raise your voices and let’s sing this song.
Our heads might be bloody but they’ll stay unbowed
And our voices will be carried on the back of clouds
And the rain’ll tell the world that they took a vow
Never to be silent. We walk alone in the crowd.