Last night I heard of the death of a stranger to me
'Though I've known many more of her kind
Scattered in bed-sits and in 'hard-to-let' flats
And anywhere else they could find
Half a world distant for half a life here
With the certainty at the day's end
Still they'd have to return
While something remains to defend

There's a slow waltz for Chile
All down through the years
Of Pinochet, murder and dread
With no quick step solution
Just the will to resist
'Til the last decent Chilean is dead

All the stencils and the arguments, the smoking and the damp
These were things that I came to resent
Until a, "Who's going to miss me if I miss now and again?"
Soon came to mean that I never went
But, drinking, I'd be there, with my fist in the air
'To consolidate we must advance'
Now a cold wind from Chile has frozen this fool
In suffering there just is no romance.

Last night I heard of the death of a stranger to me
And I didn't ask how she died
Because the way that she lived was all that we need to know
While we've still got time to decide
 

 
I'm hearing only bad news from Radio Africa.
I'm hearing only bad news from Radio Africa.

They've still got trouble with a monster in the South.
Heads buried deep in that lion's mouth
Like a jaw snapped shut, it keeps them apart
If that jaw got broke it would be a start.

The West still complains about the foreign aid
They'd do better to change the terms of trade.
More tanks than food in the Ogaden
It looks like Moscow got it wrong again.

Mozambique and Mugabe
Still got Frelimo I hear them say
But 'Exchange' means.
'Recession' means.
It all means 'Harder to take'.
Tanzania should be moving up a gear
Instead they've got to step on the brake.

Can't stop a movement that's come this far
But 'Lending' means.
'Interest' means.
'Harder to Fight'
Independence has a hidden expense
When the hands on the purse strings are white.
 

 
Nine children in one family
Nine Xhosa Wars
Nomzamo in 1960
Already victim of her country's laws
I say 'laws', why dignify
The Sjamboks and the slammed cell doors?
In twenty years they gave her nineteen sentences - still
One People! One Cause!
One People! One Cause!
Nomzamo! Nomzamo...

Named 'Trial' but how often can
You take the stand?
Nomzamo left glued in Brandfort
Twenty years for a touch of his hand
But in touch and in the face of
The Robben Islands and the bleak Pollsmoors
I see 'separate' - I see 'development' - still
One People! One Cause!
One People! One Cause!
Nomzamo! Nomzamo...
Nomzamo - you say it's part of your soul
Nomzamo - one day you'll paint it
Red, black, green and gold...

Told today that they release you
That you had paid your debt
Nomzamo in her own damn country
How much more boorish can these people get?
But you refuse to get the message
Of waving whips, in bloody semaphore
Where only gunfire's indiscriminate - as always
One People! One Cause!
One People! One Cause!
Nomzamo! Nomzamo...
 

Saw a movie, "Top of the World"
But I found it didn't lift me,
Jimmy Cagney's mother died,
It didn't move, it didn't shift me

And Santiago fell 10 years ago, or more
And we've been falling ever since
But something's stirring in Managua
It's got the power to convince.

How we ever gonna thank you enough
You've shown us that the good can get tough
Sandinista!

The future seems so far away, sometimes
Without a guide and with no example
But all your work, will take so many people there and give
Washington more than a sample.

If we could only brush away
The dust of 50 years
We'd be on a road in Spain
With a white hot sun above
And all around are voices
Other accents, other tongues
Here to say that this republic
Needs our arms, and needs our love...
 

 
When Anastasio fell he was by then the first Somoza
To have had Nicaragua like a kingdom along his blood-line
Where the national guard wore the family crest
In a family business tied to the west
But he was overthrown by those who would share their land with millions
Overthrown by those who would be free of the ox's life
But to our shame the west would aim to cut that freedom down

Burn Again! Must Nicaragua burn again!?
Burn Again! Must Nicaragua burn again!?
Because the USA's got the need to-day
To be born again
Born again!? Must Nicaragua burn again!?

The USA begins in a war of independence
When liberty stood tall in the constitution
But that torch today casts a giant doubt
When the senate sends the contras out
To hunt them down, hunt them and destroy the free elections
And it is to our shame the west would aim
To cut that freedom down

Burn Again! Must Nicaragua burn again!?
Burn Again! Must Nicaragua burn again!?
Because the USA's got the need to-day
To be born again
Born again!? Must Nicaragua burn again!?

They play Central America
Like a line of fruit machines
They take the beans for the grinder
And they meet the bill with bullets and marine
 

 
Brake out a pair of long soled shoes
Paint my face in white and blues
Roll me in the sawdust
Call me Auguste
Hire me as a hot wire act
Pass up the note that says I'm sacked
Shout it if you must
Call me Auguste

Crack the whip and bring me to my senses
I'll take a tumble and wait to fall
But if you call, if you call at all
Please talk in present tenses

Once I decked an Indian clown
Burnt my hand on a cigarette stub
Maybe it got wanderlust
Call me Auguste

Hold the ropes of the big, big, top
Keep on holding and never stop
It's something you can trust
Call me Auguste

Crack the whip and bring me to my senses
So long to peers in the Pierrots
I will quit, I will quit the shows
And hang on to all my pretences

You will always spot the troubled clown
When the circus comes to town
Eyes as red as rust
Call me Auguste

Call me Auguste
 

 
Blind Joe Death had been transfigured
We’d hung the hangman’s daughter high
In the rolling paper silence
We thought in step like passers by
From Cyfartha to Siddharta to King Arthur’s Saintly Knights
We’d bring the warring tribes together
And set a broken world to rights

But hoping that Frodo got to Mordor
No longer seemed appropriate
As Chinese printed ‘Gotha Programmes’
took the place of opiates

From your backside to the Bogside
For Upper Clyde and Soledad
We carried bed sheet dyed red banners
And poured in every hope that we had

Jerusalem is shattered
Evacuate the towers
There’s a hurricane approaching
The weatherman’s predicting showers

Jerusalem is shattered
Evacuate the towers
There’s a hurricane approaching
The weatherman’s predicting showers

If … Allende is Angola
And a taste of victory
Getting even, getting closer
With Franco down and Lisbon free
From the first cut, to the last round
We met and argued, marched and planned
Oh who would guess we’d soon be fewer
When everywhere was garage land

Oh, you can’t get a pin between the splinters
With the broad church on its knees
In these cold and bleak mid-winters
The south is blue and the rest can freeze
From the Medway to the west way
Easy money they recite
There’s some would share
But all’s divided
Where 'The Sun' would cast no light

Jerusalem is shattered
Evacuate the towers
There’s a hurricane approaching
The weather mans predicting showers

Jerusalem is shattered
Evacuate the towers
Theirs a hurricane approaching
The weatherman predict showers

Oh, chain the Raindogs to the gatepost
Drag your urchin kids inside
Press the play, turn up the volume
Hope the good Lord will provide
From the Taybridge, to the Tamar
The blame is hers, the fault is ours

At least
Hurricane approaching, the weatherman predicted showers

At least
A hurricane approaching, the weatherman predicted showers

(A very special thanks to Maja Grings for the lyrics to 'The Weatherman')
 

There's a film of dust on Tripoli
But nothings settled yet
No nothings settled yet
Oh we shouldn't waste our sympathy
They deserve all that they get said this man
Who had himself been pulled out of a wreckage quite recently
Who had booked into a bombsite
But held onto his spite

Ed Murrow should be here tonight
Ed Murrow should be here tonight

In the endless round of hostages
Someone's playing fast and loose
Someone's playing fast and loose

Those being held must wonder what the message is
It is a hard one to deduce
Of being locked-up gets to pay for some killing out in southern Honduous
There's a puzzle in the twilight
Of just who they would indite
Ed Murrow should be here tonight
Ed Murrow should be here tonight

On those new small screens on every script he'd write
Ed Murrow should be here tonight
Seems the news today is a way to separate the game shows
Ed Murrow made it more
He helped America live up to Getisburg
With just a microphone while London burned

On those new small screens with every script he'd write
The relentless theme that might is never right
Ed Murrow should be here tonight
Ed Murrow should be here tonight

On the new small screens with every script he'd write
Ed Murrow should be here tonight
There's a puzzle in the twilight of who they would indite

Ed Murrow
Ed Murrow
 

You say you know me from the room that I have made
But what is housing anyway?
Only resting and a place to stay
The architects familiar theme
I didn't choose the colour scheme

You say you'll guide me in the route I plan to take
But what is travel anyway?
Just missed connections and long delays
From Capricorn to cold extreme
And someone else's colour scheme

Nothing to loose
I've got nothing to loose
In a midnight dark as a spreading bruise
Nothing to loose
I've got nothing to loose
Between the angry reds and the dust-bowl blues

You say you'll show me all the thoughts I called my own
But what is thinking anyway?
Just furrowed brows and missing days
A broken sleep and coffee steam
The morning caffeine colour scheme

I've got nothing to loose
I've got nothing to loose
In a midnight black as a burnt out fuse
Nothing to choose
I've got nothing to loose
Between the angry reds and the dust-bowl blues

You say you have the formula for the risks I have to take
But who would gamble anyway?
On sure things that always fall away
The endless fences tear the dream
The fallen jockey's colour scheme

You say you know me from the room that I have made
But what is housing anyway?
 

Album, tour, albumen - you're still picking at the shell
And you know you should be glad of the living
But it seems like a living hell sometimes
And on this playing stage you play so hard
But so much harder still - is the life beneath, down deep in the seams
Where your hotel nights are the stuff of the dreams
Of the men below

Imagine, having to fight
To work two miles down from the air and the light
And imagine, having to plead
That a job that can kill, is a job that you need

Darker blue this darkness, than a pale young miner's eyes
Who has to see the convoy lights come shining
And can't close off his surprise
With his one poor piece of paving, pressing hard against his palm
Knowing it might be the only way he'd ever get to spend another day
With the men below

A bingo king is calling
It must be morning time again
And every gaudy ball that gets blown out
It seems it's numbered 'number ten'
While on an empty bus they tried so very hard to fill up every seat
There was a method in this mad alarm
Who do you think would ever do such harm to the men below?

And who knows what we all owe
To the boys in the dust - to the men below?

And who knows what we all owe
To the boys in the dust - to the men below?

And who knows what we all owe
To the boys in the dust - to the men below?
 

It's a snow-wind
She's felt it blow for sixty years or more.
Cora and the snow-wind
Like the row-lock and the oar
Cutting through these icy waters
To find shelter and perfection and the shore.

Cora's lived a kind of life
From downstairs maid to miner's wife
Making sure she shined a floor
In Surrey homes before the war
She feels that snow-wind blowing.
She's not sure where we're going anymore.

For years past 1926
They dug the hill-sides out with picks
While still behind the iron gate
Those winding-wheels she'd come to hate
She feels that snow-wind blowing.
She thinks we might be getting there too late.

It's a snow-wind
It blows so hard it cuts her to the bones.
Cora and the snow-wind
A women's life is not her own
As she dives in icy waters
To find passion and survival, all alone.

Cora and the sisterhood
Less sisters now in Prims.
And it doesn't sound the same
Without the voices for the hymns.
 

Old Afrikaaner farmer on the terrace of his home
Sits gently in his rocking chair, gazing at this land he owns.
There he sees his memories and there his past
There he smiles his grim smile, strokes his gun, swears he'll make it last.

Someone brings the whisky, someone serves the meal
Like the someone in the township, in the mine and in the fields.
Someone at the graveyard, someone with their tears
Someone who can't forget the freedom lost these 100 years.

Old man, you can boost about the gun that's by your bed
Old man, you can tell me how you're good for all your kaffirs yet
And your guns can fire, and your prisons fill
And you've yards of rope for hanging still
But your guns can shoot and never hit the sky
And there's no rope as long as time.

Mandela in the prison, Biko in the ground
Sharpeville and Soweto voices silenced till the end of time.
Freedom don't come easy, don't come bloodless, don't come fast
But in the hearts of the countless people
No pass law's gonna stop us pass.

Sometimes he'll talk of reasons, economy and cause
Sometimes he'll even talk of changes
Though he clasps the gun and talks of laws.
But power ain't this old man's gift
And freedom's no reform
The old man made the history and the history's made of wars.
 

 
Don't walk, don't walk it says but he can't ride
Not while his only living relative's inside
Who couldn't pay his way and couldn't pay his fines
His spirit stretched like gum between the 'stop' signs

The dust of angels hurled into your eyes
Does more than sear and more than tranquilise the burger beads of gristle marbled hard
And strewn like clam-shell pearls in your back-yard

Race me down, Felipe, race me down
To the small and secret corners of this town
Race me fast on sunset
Race me past sundown
Race me down, Felipe

The street is a storefront smashed beyond repair
Where the cheaper goods still cost too much to care
But wisdom's thrown in free with every sale
Don't fool yourself 'cos you can't even raise your bail

Say, hey Felipe, the barrio's like a barrier to a town
That no-one knows (where no-one goes)
Say, stay Felipe, left to lose, they left us curfewed,
Left us cracked in two
 

 
It's a life-time from the leather stalls
The Berbers and bazaars
Down through every measured movement
In the making of the cars.
And it doesn't pay much
And it doesn't leave scars - on the outside.

And they give you the impression
It's all Monet and Braque
But the oil they squeeze on their palettes
They never use on this track.
And every extra filter
Is a fissure, is a crack - on the inside.

All this way - Toulouse
Another day - Toulouse
You've come too far - Toulouse.

And he walks in right behind you
As you both go punching in
And you both pick up your rivets
From an aluminium bin.
And he thinks what makes him different
Is the colour of his skin - it's on the outside.

All this way - Toulouse
Another day - Toulouse
You've come too far - Toulouse.

You've had their OAS
You've had their CGT
And no-one will be working here
When they bring in CNC
 

What's keeping the White House white
Is it chalk, Is it fog, Is it fear?
Are they staying up most of the night
And sending somebody out for a beer?
Is it bed-time for Bonzo?
Is it time for a change?
Is it flavour-free TV dinners?
It's a hard thing to take, when they make a mistake
America for Beginners.

The sound of a bell with a crack
Even the swingers are swinging right
The vigilantes are on the way back
With prime-time 'fight the good fight'.
What a start to a day
It starts three times with a "K"
There's no sponsored hour for sinners
They'll bring back the hot seat
And turn up the heat
America for Beginners

That's America for Beginners.

You wear designer jeans after dark
And your shirts are sharp-cut in satin
But won't you watch out for Central Park
And apartments in uptown Manhattan.
It's a sign of the times
Better stay out in front
Because they've only got time for winners.
Just keep living for fun, you son of a gun
America for Beginners.

Everywhere there's stripes and stars
Men in dark suits in unmarked cars
Sipping Jack Daniels in Third World bars
They're close to the edge.
They're as close as you can get.
 

I'm standing hands in pockets
In a place that's damp and grey and famous
The air is sharp with accents
All announcing that 'they shouldn't blame us'
But a place that has its problems
Just took on another group

Thirty-eight in the Heysel, in one fell swoop.
Oh you can blame it on the fences, on the cops,
Or you can blame it on Juventus
They were truly continental
All those dirty pictures that you sent us
But in the cities desire to concur
How low must we stoop

To the slaughter of the innocence
In one fell swoop
To the slaughter of the innocence
In one fell swoop

Meanwhile back home in the studio
Are the clutch of bleeding hearts
Who season after season,
Wave the flag in foreign parts
But who scream for low and order
When their waving comes unstuck
With a message to the terraces
That they could not give a fuck

For the people of a city
Who have lost most in the turn to Europe
And who are left to scratch a living
Out of nothing but a washed out ball
Now all they get is the receiver
And the latest super snoop
Who prejudice just got confirmed, in one fell swoop

In one fell swoop
In one fell swoop
 

 
Another feature film about an air-line disaster
Another news item and another newscaster
But there's worst to come at the arrival gate
There's a crack on board and it's running in freight

Well the fruit of the poppy take up all your time
Getting high by the hands of re-organised crime
Put the put the squeeze on the Colombian leaf
Make the brother a liar and a sister a thief

It's nothing like velvet, nothing like velvet
It's nothing like velvet but it starts off smooth
Nothing like velvet and a rut's not a groove
Its nothing like velvet when it's pound on pound
Nothing like velvet when you're underground

They're shooting up Glasgow, shooting up Leeds
There was never this peril with the stems and seeds
And the hip and the right have got nothing to say
Except, "It's out of control and it's headed your way"

It's nothing like velvet, nothing like velvet

And I loved Charlie Parker but you know he did us harm
Every time he left to pour that inspiration in his arm

It's nothing like velvet but it starts off smooth
Nothing like velvet and a rut's not a groove
Its nothing like velvet when it's pound on pound
Nothing like velvet when you're underground
 

(Thanks to Chris Webster for the correction to 'Auguste'.)