While sons and daughters of the empire
Stained the map red, white and blue
Back at home the storm clouds thundered
Dole queues lengthened - unrest grew
'til the tides of fresh opinion
Washed away the world they knew.

Exchange inhuman wrongs for human rights
This underdog not only barks - it bites!

Take your partners for our civil war dance
Open season on the under worked and overpaid.
Erase the Constitution - a bloody revolution
Is the simplest solution to the problems that they have made.

Children of the urban third world
Breast fed lies and cathode rays
Speak their minds down party chat lines
(they don't have that much to say)
Told nothing of the world we live in
Or that it will be theirs someday.

This system cultivates our lust and greed
With anti-social insecurity.

Take your partners for our civil war dance
Open season on the under worked and overpaid.
Erase the Constitution - a bloody revolution
Is the simplest solution to the problems that they have made.

The preacher tells us all that heaven waits
So pay your "soul tax" when you reach the gates.

Take your partners for our civil war dance
Open season on the under worked and overpaid.
Erase the Constitution - a bloody revolution
Is the simplest solution to the problems that they have made.

Livestock bred to feed the cannon
Hands grown hard with honest toil
Fuel the fires of mass rebellion
Hatred's cauldron starts to boil
They fight for something they believe in
Not another nation's oil.

Britannia cowers in her public school
Once too often now she's waived the rules.

Take your partners for our civil war dance
Open season on the under worked and overpaid.
Erase the Constitution - a bloody revolution
Is the simplest solution to the problems that they have made.

Hands locked in darkness - a nocturnal greeting
We flutter like moths round the brazier's flame
Shrouded in shadow - our clandestine meeting
Here where past and present are one and the same.

No-one dies in Cardboard City
Faces only fade away
Eat your pride and take their pity
Fight to live another day.

And did those feet in ancient times
Walk bare upon these lonely streets like mine?
Does God watch us from that penthouse high above
His children down below who live on air and love?
Wrapped in old headlines beneath this shop awning
I shiver in silence and wait for the morning.

No-one cries in Cardboard City
That would be a waste of tears
Eat your pride and take their pity
Like you have so many years.

Youth of our nation - A lost generation
Like lepers we march to the chimes of Big Ben.
Exiled and rejected by powers elected
Our cries from the gutter don't reach number ten.
Give us this day our daily bread
Before the headlines read "bring out your dead."
Chip-wrapper flowers are blown onto this cardboard grave
My spray paint epitaph upon the wall it says...
"Here lies the bones of some poor homeless vagrant
He died as he lived, in the shit on the pavement."

No-one dies in Cardboard City
Faces only fade away
Eat your pride and take their pity
Fight to live another day.

No-one cries in Cardboard City
That would be a waste of tears
Eat your pride and take their pity
Like you have so many years.

There's a beast in the cellar
There since this building was made.
He's lurked in the shadows
From when its' foundations were laid.

From my "double-helix" he taunts me
His primal voice roars
It mocks my humanity
Turning the key in locked doors.

Sins of emission - an animal trapped in a civilised mind
Sins of emission - my formal facade for the deaf, dumb and blind.
Sins of emission - spilling my seed now the harvest is sown
Sins of emission - come feast on a banquet of blood, flesh and bone.

Though we try to deny
This primordial drive in us all
We will cease to exist
When we no longer heed nature's call.

I'm a puppet of lust and my instincts are pulling the strings
No, love's not an angel - it's merely a monkey with wings.

Sins of emission - enticing and thrilling
Sins of emission - the flesh is so willing
Sins of emission - down under my skin
Sins of emission - we're all "in like Flynn."

Temptation's the one thing we'll never resist
It flirts like a maiden that yearns to be kissed
Is throwing the cradle to hells raging fires
More sinful than nursing unacted desires?

Hold tightly the reins
Of your bestial instinct to breed
He's an unwelcome guest
In the "house-trained" existence you lead

How long can you muzzle this wild brute creation of yours?
You can't quarantine the primeval with walls, bars and doors.

Sins of emission - an animal trapped in a civilised mind
Sins of emission - my formal facade for the deaf, dumb and blind.
Sins of emission - spilling my seed now the harvest is sown
Sins of emission - come feast on a banquet of blood, flesh and bone.

Show me a politician who's a man we can trust
And if I ever meet him then I think I'll have him stuffed
Look out of the window - see not one happy face
The only splash of colour's the graffiti 'round the place.

It's hard to even crawl
With your back up against the wall.
I find it hard to sleep at night
I feel that the worst is yet to come
Social helter-skelter
Ride the downward spiral has begun.
Are some people just born bad
Or is it how we all become?
Human termites driven mad
In the concrete mound of the rising slum.

The people who are dark fear the people who are fair
And hippies live in terror of the guys who have no hair
The saddest thing of all - what I really find grim
Is we haven't yet noticed what a mess we're all in.

It's hard to even crawl
Now your back's up against the wall.
I find it hard to sleep at night
I feel that the worst is yet to come
Social helter-skelter
Ride the downward spiral has begun.
Are some people just born bad
Or is it how we all become?
Human termites driven mad
In the concrete mound of the rising slum.

The "whether man" says that the outlook's not great
A few outbreaks of murder with some isolated rape
I ask my doctor his advice, this is what he says,
"Get yourself some cancer boy, before you die of aids."

It's hard to even crawl
With your back up against the wall.
I find it hard to sleep at night
I feel that the worst is yet to come
Social helter-skelter
Ride the downward spiral has begun.
Are some people just born bad
Or is it how we all become?
Human termites driven mad
In the concrete mound of the rising slum.

Pick up the fragments and piece them together
Tell me do you like what you've found?
Are your thoughts like the earth spinning round?
Existence is pure pantomime
Why is life such a puzzle sometimes?

Trapped in a world I no longer feel part of
Each day is a thorn in my side
Though I've carried my cross - worn my heart on my sleeve
Still deep inside something has died.
If men have a sell-by-date I've just reached mine
Now we've come to the end of the line.
Why is life such a puzzle sometimes?

Well I just can't believe that it's happened again
Always knew that it would - just a matter of when
A lie was the last straw on this camels back
And just like Lot's wife I could never look back.
So maybe the reason I act so estranged
Is you still dream of him, it's you that has changed.

No method to madness - no reason to rhyme
Now we've come to the end of the line.
Why is life such a puzzle sometimes?

Well I just can't believe that it's happened again
Always knew that it would - just a matter of when
A lie was the last straw on this camels back
And just like Lot's wife I could never look back.
So maybe the reason I act so estranged
Is you still dream of him, it's you that has changed.

If men have a sell-by-date I've just reached mine
Now we've come to the end of the line.
Why is life such a puzzle sometimes?

I'm twenty six years old - please tell me what have I got
A monopoly on misery - I guess that's my lot
Ten years of eating bullshit leaves it's taste in your mouth
And I think the time has come for me to spit it all out...

'Cause at the end of the tunnel I see
A dole-queue that's beckoning me.

Yes living hand-to-mouth it can be fun for a while
Simple things please simple minds - do you see me smile?
I've broke my bread and fishes - turned my water to wine
But I'm sick of walking tightrope on the poverty line
I left my home and family - I've pawned all my dreams
Took a second mortgage on my soul to further my schemes
Now my body's in the pages of "exchange and mart"
Ten pounds or nearest offer for one slightly broken heart.

And at the end of the rainbow I found
A crock of shit there on the ground.

Have you had a bellyful of emptiness
Do you feel like me we're all just wasting our time
If it's true inside each cloud's a silver lining
Why does it shine on other lives but not on mine?
I've had a bellyful of emptiness
I've got a pocketful of nothing at all
In real-life fairy tales the frog stays a frog
And the serving girl can't be the belle of the ball.

You're not the belle of the ball
Get back in your cinders and crawl

How many other fools like me
Have lost their lives contractually
Believing there must be far more
Than nine to five - the factory floor?
Have countless thousands watched their dreams
Corrupted into things obscene
By money minded bastards who
Don't give a damn for me or you?

Now my wallet's getting thinner like the hair on my head
By the time I hit the "big Time" I'll be buried and dead
Tell me how can you resent me for the money I've spent
On the only habit I indulge (that's paying the rent)?
No-one said this life was easy Christ I've known that all along
But it needn't be this difficult that's why I wrote this song
The sex and drugs and rock 'n 'roll were never meant to last
And the bailiffs knocking on your door don't need a backstage pass!

Be sure that you read between their lines
There are claws in the contracts we sign.

Have you had a bellyful of emptiness
Do you feel like me we're all just wasting our time
If it's true inside each cloud's a silver lining
Why does it shine on other lives but not on mine?
I've had a bellyful of emptiness
I've got a pocketful of nothing at all
In real-life fairy tales the frog stays a frog
And the serving girl can't be the belle of the ball.

2 A.M. a southbound junction - innocence takes flight
Common sense has lost all function - stranded in the night.
The albatross has flown the nest - he's breaking family ties
He recalls his mother weeping with her hands held to her eyes.
His alcoholic father was too drunk to know or care
The rod not spared had spoiled this child - his only son and heir.

The city lights have pulled him southward - magnets in his mind
Where the streets are paved with gold and lady luck is kind.

"The boy only wants some attention - he's wasting our time
He'll never survive on his own - for he's no son of mine."

There's thousands more just like him - seeking love they've never found
No hearth and home to call his own - our fox has run to ground.
His father taught him right from wrong (and beat him black and blue)
Caressed the boy with his clenched fist the only way he knew.

He never went to school that much 'cause he could not disguise
The weals and bruises on his legs - the rings around his eyes.

He only needed a family to help him to shine
All he has is a ticket to ride on the poverty line.

He stirs from his gin and tamazapam coma
To find while he slept someone has done him over
His things are all missing or strewn 'cross the floor
And he can't quite recall the events of the evening before.

As cars race by our young prince waits behind his cardboard shield
"OXFAM" crown upon his head - his thumb a sword to wield
A shoddy-clad knight of the road - the quest is underway
Drawn by glowing street lights in the night - and smoke by day.

The city lights have pulled him southward - magnets in his mind
Where the streets are paved with gold and lady luck is kind.

"The boy only wants some attention - he's wasting our time"
(he only needed a family to help him to shine)
"He'll never survive on his own - for he's no son of mine"
(all he has is a ticket to ride on the poverty line).

The devil's circus came to town - we watched the freaks arrive en masse
When they paraded through our streets, we turned a blind eye as they passed
Safe in the comfort of our homes we all forget the need to fear
This is the new "new Jerusalem" and it could never happen

Hear the cries as freedom dies - the gods of war have woken
A Catherine wheel of fire and steel, the death machine in motion.

The Gammadion Seed - draw the curtains, live in fear
The Gammadion Seed - watch your neighbours disappear
The Gammadion Seed - if you're too slow to realise
The Gammadion Seed - then Gammadion will rise.

Five years pass by - unnoticed change, their glamour has us in it's grasp
But now the walls have eyes and ears - questions too dangerous to ask
New state controlled T.V. and press - for reasons suddenly unclear
This is the European dream so nothing bad can happen

Hear the cries as freedom dies - the gods of war have woken
A Catherine Wheel of fire and steel, the death machine in motion.

Now the first among equals are chosen at birth
Your outward appearance is all that you're worth
They came for the black man and then for the Jew
They've done with the gypsies - all that leaves is you!

Behind the painted greasepaint smiles - hide faces rarely known to grin
Men who will feed you to the lions for having different thoughts or skin
And when we realise that we've made a state to last a thousand years
Our pleas for help will not be heard, because there's no-one left to...

Hear the cries as freedom dies - the gods of war have woken
A Catherine Wheel of fire and steel, the death machine in motion.

The Gammadion Seed - draw the curtains, live in fear
The Gammadion Seed - watch your neighbours disappear
The Gammadion Seed - if you're too slow to realise
The Gammadion Seed - then Gammadion will rise.

Black hat stranger - affluent as effluent
Hides behind his mirror shades and crocodile smile
Preying on the weak, the vulnerable and innocent
All things pure and virginal he will defile.

Shepherd of a flock of black sheep - he knows his charges well
Their thirst for life is drowning down in his snow filled hell...

They never die - in "the Womb of the Worm" they lie
They never die - in "the Womb of the Worm" they lie.

Slaves to the only god they know,
Drawn by the song of the cosmic diva
The lord of the flies is a dandy beau
King of the hill in the new Bohemia
Where does he come from, their redeemer
Where does he dwell? (they never learn)
What is the prize for the true believer?
Rotting away in the "Womb of the Worm"?

Death is the hand of a handsome stranger - (he speaks, heads turn)
Babes unaware of impending danger - quickening dead in the "Womb of the Worm"

They never die - in "the Womb of the Worm" they lie
They never die - in "the Womb of the Worm" they lie.

At the gravesides of sad lonely children
Reason sits with a tear in her eye
Killed in their prime - tell me why were they taken?
It's not them but "the Worm" that should die.
"Stabat Mater Dolorosa" - a grieving mother's sad refrain
Chasing dragons in the subway, to kill the time and ease the pain.

Words of "the Worm":
"Don't be afraid - just take my hand
'cause life's too short to be a bore
Try it once, you'll understand
Why they keep coming back for more."
Form an orderly line outside death's door
If you want to taste his sweet amnesia
He's never short of clientele
Though most of them die from a fatal seizure
Another mother cries to a chat-show host
(she speaks - my stomach churns)
I hear how a young kid - now a young ghost
Died a sickening death in "the Womb of the Worm."

They never die - in "the Womb of the Worm" they lie
They never die - in "the Womb of the Worm" they lie.

A red letter day for our nowhere industrial town
A minister's heading this way - he's closing us down
But what of my daughter - and what of my son
Just how will they live when the factory's gone?

Election day promises now null and void
They'll never rest 'til we're all unemployed
UB40's a book that you'll find very hard to put down
The dormant machinery screams - taunting the skies
Ghosts of the Halcyon dream sustaining our lives
No job for my daughter - no job for my son
How can I forgive them for what they have done?

New statesmen composing the lies for tomorrow's front page
What pays for the blunders they make - it's the working mans wage.

Election day promises now null and void
They'll never rest 'til we're all unemployed
UB40's a book that you'll find very hard to put down
They've issued us all with free rose tinted glasses
Job training schemes - leisure management classes
No news is good when you live on the wrong side of town.

The nadir of despair we have sunk to is easy to gauge
Our children grow thinner and ever more bitter with age.
From Newcastle's shipyards to Nottingham's pits
They strip down our country and sell it in bits
Election day promises seemingly now null and void
While microchip minds keep the industry grinding
We all hunt for jobs that we've no chance of finding
No change in the everyday lives of the mass unemployed.

A red letter day for our nowhere industrial town
A minister's heading this way - he's closing us down
But what of my daughter - and what of my son
Just how will they live when the factory's gone?

Election day promises now null and void
They'll never rest 'til we're all unemployed
UB40's a book that you'll find very hard to put down
They've issued us all with free rose tinted glasses
Job training schemes - leisure management classes
No news is good when you live on the wrong side of town.