Songs: Burn It Down And Start Again

notes / gigs / releases

Conference season's come around
Polluting all the seaside towns
A week of weirdoes, wonks and apparatchiks
While internecine wars are fought
The future of the country's bought
With whisky, wine and sausages on sticks
With well-rehearsed words from the stage
Hard-working families are praised
By people who've never worked a day

Every party all the same
Burn it down and start again
The establishment will never ever change
Pull down empires, kill the kings
Give us back our dignity
Burn it down and start over again
Burn it down and start over again

The cancer of the corporate press
Pervert their purpose to protect
The public from corruption by corrupting
And quisling schoolboys, dense as gold
Use futures that their parents stole
From other children to do nothing
Their gene pool is a gene puddle
Their contribution is sod all
The parasitic produce of the powered

Everybody all the same
Burn it down and start again
Society will never ever change
Pull down empires, kill the kings
Give us back our dignity
Burn it down and start over again
Burn it down and start over again

Every awful rumour that you ever heard is true
They all knew about it but they kept it quiet from you
Everything is rotten, the whole country's corrupt
The only thing that's left we can rely on
Is us

And above pubs the acronyms
Of every alphabet and wing
Are talking talking talking to themselves
One day they'll act, just not tonight
'Cause if they acted then they might
Be forced to find out if they've souls to sell
Far better to do nothing then
Far easier just to complain
Far simpler to write another song

Yes I know I'm just the same
Burn it down and start again
Singing songs will change a thing
Pull down empires, kill the kings
Give me back my dignity
Burn it down and start over again
Burn it down and start over again

Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing

This was my second attempt at writing words to this tune, the first being a version Hills And Hollows which The Validators thought was insufficiently hit-like. This was meant to be The Album Of Hits so I went back to the drawing board.

It was also meant to be a sort of update of WE VALIDATE!, so amongst all the songs about being middle-aged I thought there ought to be some politics on there too. With this in mind I spent several weeks stomping around thinking Political Thoughts and getting annoyed!

One of the first lines came from The Members Of My Party who suggested the Apparatchiks/Sausage Sticks bit in verse one. Shortly after that I then spent an hour sat in Regents Park scowling at the wealthy who cavorted there and writing more lyrics, then a few days later I had to go to Mayfair on an errand for my boss, got even more annoyed and wrote even more lyrics. All this contact with West London increased my ongoing desire to set fire to the entire establishment - it's the only way forward!

While writing it I was very aware of a certain kind of 'Political Band' whose songs all go 'Oh look at us we are doing a pop song that you like but it is ALL POLITICAL really but you probably didn't notice that because we are so clever.' I don't like that sort of thing and tried very hard not to fall into it myself, whilst also recognising that I was veering close to the kind of Self-Important Statements you see on people's Facebook profiles. Hence the last verse!