Yes Sir, I Will Lyrics

Artist: Crass
Album: Yes Sir, I Will

The door stands open -
Across lines, invisible hands are held, golden streamers building in the night.
Alone, the possibilities are enormous.
Step outside and parasites, deprived of their meat, wait to suck on tiring flesh,
Unending statistics that fatten leaders, prisoners of their morality.
Afraid of death, we can not save ourselves.
To breathe is not enough.

Yes sir, I Will.

When you woke this morning you looked so rocky-eyed,
Blue and white normally, but strange ringed like that in black.
It doesn't get much better, your voice can get just ripped up shouting in vain,
Maybe someone hears what you say, but you're still on your own at night.
You've got to make such a noise to understand the silence,
Screaming like a jackass, ringing ears so you can't hear the silence
Even when it's there. Like the wind seen from the window,
Seeing it but not being touched by it.

*
Words sometimes don't seem to mean much;
Of anyone we've used more that most.
Feelings from the heart that have been distorted and mocked,
Thrown around in the spectacle, the grand social circus.

*
Up against the rows of grey robots who control our lives
The things we have to offer sometimes seem so frail.
As they plan destruction and gain respectability,
We offer our creativity and are made outcasts.

*
We didn't expect to find ourselves playing this part,
We were concerned with ideas, not rock and roll,
But we can't avoid that arena,
It's become a part of us even if we don't understand it.

*
In attempts to moderate they ask why we don't write love songs.
What is it that we sing then?
Our love of life is total, everything we do is an expression of that,
Everything that we write is a love song.

*
We look for alternatives,
But the enormous power of the media makes it so difficult
To establish foundations. Their lies and distortions are so extreme
That everything becomes poisoned and corrupted.
We can become media personalities, but it is always on their terms.
We're tired of living up to other people's expectations when our own are so much higher.
Intelligence seems so easily dismissed when it doesn't conform to mainstream values.
Lennon said "They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool",
He was right. Social intelligence merely requires agreement and compromise.

*
The boundaries are becoming narrower as the State becomes more paranoid.
Under authoritarian rule, conformity becomes the only security.
Fear is a powerful weapon against human development.
Cowering in our temples of self there's little chance of change;
The State is aware of that. The bomb serves many functions.
If fear of the omnipotent God is no more,
The nuclear Father will govern with his shepherd's crook,
Drawing his flock closer to the valley of the shadow of death.

*
Those of us who stand out against the status quo
Do so against all odds.
We cling so closely together
Because we have little other than ourselves.
Critics say that it's just punk rock or that we're just naive anarchists.
They hope to discredit us with their labels and definitions.
Throughout history societies have condemned those who are later celebrated as heroes,
In so many bourgeois homes Van Gogh's sunflowers radiate from the walls,
Yet he lived in utter misery, condemned by those very same people.
Why is it that the kind and gentle are subjected to violence and riducule?
How is it that the small and mealy-minded have gained so much power?
What perversion has taken place that we are governed by fools?

*
We've had problems from self-appointed Gods from Bishops to MPs.
They've tried to ban our records saying that we're a threat to decent society.
Fuck them. I hope we are.
What kind of depraved idiot thinks they can silence others by denying them their voice?
For fucks sake, who are these lobotomists?
As if walls only had one side.
Whispered intimacies might not get through,
But cries of anguish know no barriers.
But how long do we shout for?
Denied the airwaves, we trust in the wind to carry what we say.
But sometimes we've found ourselves shouting into the wind
When we should have been confiding in each other.
It seems so absurd that we are denied the chance of ever being truly free.
The terrible inequalities of the peoples of this earth
Make freedom at best a dream, at worst an insulting privilege.
What space is there for self-expression and personal development
When over half the world's population is starving?
There are so many things that might have been done,
But rooted on this spot in the desire to find solution,
There's little to see and feel but the sighing and dying of our world.
But for suffering we might have been a part of it rather than apart from it.

*
Making the compromises,
Brave fronts, deceitful disguises. What did you know? What did you care?
What did you know? What did you care?
Turning a blind eye to the lies just to keep it all together,
But sometimes when I'm alone like this I wonder whether it's worth it.

Smiling and socialising.
Endless philosophising. What did you know? What did you care?
What did you know? What did you care?
Surface agreements, statements of fact, trying to prove we can do it,
But sometimes when I'm alone like this I wonder just who can see through it.

Bargains and sacrifices.
Cheap tricks, cheaper devices. What did you know? What did you care?
What did you know? What did you care?
Holding the vision, but losing our sight, endlessly searching solution,
But sometimes when I'm alone like this I wonder how much it's just institution.

What did you know? What did you care?
What did you know? What did you care?
What did you know? What did you care?
What did you know? What did you care?
Anarchy's become another word for 'got 10p to spare?' What did you know? What did you care?
Another way of saying 'I'm O.K., sod you out there'. What did you know? What did you care?
Another token tantrum to cover up the fear. What did you know? What did you care?
Another institution, another cross to bear. What did you know? What did you care?
etc. etc.

*
Anything and everything can be so easily institutionalised,
A poor parody of itself. Itself contained by itself.
There's no point in just mouthing the words.
The token tantrums just aren't enough,
Nor is speed and weed and the Positive Creed.
Exclusive clubs where the various tribes congratulate each other for doing fuck all
Will achieve nothing but the strengthening of the status quo.
Punk has spawned another rock and roll elite,
Cheap Rotten Vicious imitations thinking they'll change their world
With dyed hair and predictable gestures. Nouveau wankers.
There's a thousand empty stages waiting for their empty performances,
A thousand empty faces waiting for their empty stances.
How many times must we hear rehashed versions of Feeding of the 5000
By jerks whose only fuck off to the system has been one off the wrist?
It's the Feeding of the 5 Knuckle Shuffle.

*
If there was no government, wouldn't there be chaos
Everybody running round, setting petrol bombs off?
And if there was no police force, tell me what you'd do
If thirty thousand rioters came running after you?
And who would clean the sewers? Who'd mend my television?
Wouldn't people lay about without some supervision?
Who'd drive the fire engines? Who'd fix my video?
If there were no prisons, well, where would robbers go?

And what if I told you to Fxxk Off?

What if there's no army to stop a big invasion?
Who'd clean the bogs and sweep the floors? We'd have all immigration.
Who'd pull the pint at the local pub? Where'd I get my fags?
Who'd empty out my dustbins? Would I still get plastic bags?
If there were no hospitals, and no doctors too,
If I'd broken both my legs, where would I run to?
If there's no medication, if there were no nurses,
Wouldn't people die a lot? And who would drive the hearses?

And what if I told you to Fxxk Off?

If there were no butchers shops, what would people eat?
You'd have everybody starving if they didn't get their meat.
If there was no water, what would people drink?
Who'd flush away the you-know-what? But of course MINE never stink.
What about the children? Who'd teach them in the schools?
Who'd make the beggers keep in line? Learn them all the rules?
Who's tell us whitewash windows? When to take down doors?
Tell us make a flask of tea and survive the holocaust?

*
The rock and roll swindler says it's O.K. to plunder,
So the pirates set sail to rape any ethnic culture they can plug a mike to.
The imperialists rub their hands in glee
As the slave-boy hunts out butt-ends in the garbage cans.
Is it any wonder there was such sickening celebration over the Task Force
When so called radicals work hand in hand with the ruling elite?
Yesterday those wily creeps rejected the status quo,
Today they smarm and charm passageways to its very heart.
Where's the free individual in all that?
Where's the hope and aspiration?
Identities have become corporations,
Social egos and media moulds,
Scholars of ad-man's dreams. Prescribed futures;
Must we all down aspirins and shine beneath borrowed tans?
Are we really so dumb, so cowered into submission
That not only are we prepared to eat shit
We're also prepared to say thanks for the privilege?
Why should we accept servility as a bargain for dignity?
Why should we passively accept death as a bargain for living?
Why accept this robbery of life? Why accept this pillage?
For Christ's sake take up your bed and walk.
Let the blind see end the deaf hear.
The rights of the individual are dependent upon
You realising your right as an individual.
People are so easily deluded into thinking they've instrumented choice
Where in reality they're nothing but passive observers.
Passive observers do nothing but passively observe,
Passively soak up creativity and say "Wow, that's me!",
Passively soak up destruction and say "Oh no, not us, not me".
There are those who strive for value and meaning;
Who search for reason and purpose;
Their efforts are negated by the passive observers.

*
They spend days before the T.V. set so burned out,
Is it any wonder they've lost all sense of vision and possibility?
What chance does anyone have when all the spaces are filled?
Sipping breakfast teas to the sound of Space Invaders.

*
Television is today's Nuremberg.
Bowing to its authority, they become it.
I've seen four year old children conforming to media roles.
Main-lining the gross theatre that will become their lives.
The television has so dampened people's anger.
The population is mesmerised by the flickering screen
And the streets, where the politics of reality were once created,
Are deserted at night and the rulers sleep secure.
They are under no threat as long as the people are sedated.
Those who suffer head-aches from excessive intake of electrons are prescribed valium,
Or pay for a fix at the pub where men have to piss up the wall
And the stench of urine lasts well into the next pint.

*
Entertainment is designed to gloss over real problems
And very often those who profess dissent only add to the deception.
Words are banded about, but always at the whim of the puppeteer.
Actionless sloganeering is just another Punch and Judy show.

*
Any information that we receive concerning the real world is carefully controlled,
Why else would fiction have such licence?
We are allowed to see endless theatrical deaths,
But when the real deaths started on the Falklands
Government censors prevented us from seeing them.
We were given the excuse of 'National Security'
By the lying shits who were interested only in saving their political skins.
It didn't matter a fuck to them how many died
As long as their popularity ratings didn't suffer,
For that reason alone we were shielded from the truth.
While the real violence is kept from us
We are exposed to constant pantomimes of death and destruction.
Those in power are rightly aware that if we had access to the real facts
We would cease to be simply passive observers.
Media coverage of Viet Nam created massive dissent in the U.S.A.
Thatcher's government was aware of that when, embarking on the Falkland charade,
They refused press cards to anyone who they knew would not support their line.
Those who did travel to the Falklands found their reports dramatically cut down.
Meanwhile, at home, we were fed fabrications of Britain's 'glorious war'.
The truth that is now filtering out paints a very different picture.

*
It's often been said that truth is the first casualty of war,
It is, but the same could be said of life.
From birth we are threatened and beaten into submission
By family, church, school and state.
From then on we're easy game for the powermongers.
Like pathetic circus dogs we hunt out praise
Or, when our true nature finds its way to the surface
We hide in the darkness, our tails between our legs.
At all costs we are prevented from realising our own potential.
We are conditioned into being passive observers.
If the ring-master offers war,
We have been conditioned to passively accept it.
War can only exist through passive acceptance.
It is nothing but a demonstration of the weakness of human will.

*
If the clown offered peace
We will have been conditioned to accept that too,
But peace can not and will not be maintained through passive acceptance.
Peace will require constant demonstrations of personal strength,
Constant effort, constant hard work,
Reappraisal, consideration and devotion.
Which of those qualities were you taught in schoolroom?
Whereas war simply requires the masses as cannon-fodder,
Peace requires individuals to realise their own potential,
The odds are hopelessly against because the State deliberately destroys human will.

*
Passive observers offer nothing but decay.
The flowerbeds need weeding, the roses need cutting back before winter.
Freed from sedation, released from bondage,
People would demonstrate their own strength,
But the powerful elite are aware of this
And already have tabs on those who they regard as subversives.
It is easy for them to single out and intimidated us
And easier still for us simply not to bother.

*
It is impossible to gauge the effect that demands for peace may be having,
The authorities are skilled at concealing dissatisfaction.
For so long people have been saying "No more war",
But for all those demands little has changed.
Seeing that the Peace Movement was growing in strength,
Thatcher appointed Heseltine as Minister of Defence.
One specific part of his job is to discredit CND,
Such is the nature of Conservative democraty.

*
As pacifist we are too easily forced back into tokenism,
Making hollow gestures against the wheels of the juggernaut.
The line is delicate.
The spaces have always been created by the gentle and caring,
To be later filled by bullies and egotists.
We can try to fill those spaces with the strength of our love.
Gandhi called it Ahimsa. The Greenham Wowan call it the 'Politics of Whimsy',
But it doesn't end there, neither is it enough.
Gandhi played a major role in liberating India from Britain rule,
But conditions in India are still appaling for the ordinary people.
Limiting Greenham Peace Camp to women only is a sensible political ploy,
But if it is a demonstration of sexual exclusivity it is a sham.
Aren't we seeking to destroy all forms of exclusivity?
Does our own oppression give us the right to oppress others?
Unless we are prepared to oppose all oppression,
We stand guilty of direct contribution to it.

*
The neo-fascist plunder our land
And we must resist them on every level.
As outsiders we have few right with which to oppose them,
But on our own, together, we seek them.
They have their law and those who impose it.
We only have ourselves and each other.
They have their order and those who impose it.
We only have ourselves and each other.
It is easy to dismiss those who seek peace as dreamers,
But isn't our whole culture built on past dreams?
It is essential that our dreams become a reality
Or there will cease to be one.

*
Harrods boast that it can supply any whim that its wealthy clients might express,
Well let them supply me an Exocet missile and a starving Third World child
And I'll tell them the politics of choice.
Equality doesn't enter into the ghettos of wealth.
Beneath the protective sheath of Thatcher's economy
The right, rich and privileged get even richer
And they, in turn, support her barbaric policies both at home and overseas.
The Falklands war cost Britain over sixteen thousand million pounds - in whose pocket?

*
Throughout the world millions of people are employed making armaments,
Don't they realise that it's ordinary people like themselves who'll suffer the effects of their filthy labour?

*
The wealthy obscene with their obscene wealth
Applaud the carnage from their grandstand.
It's as if they were at Ascot laying their bets;
Five to one on the Four Horsemen.
They believe that money can buy them out of the responsibility
That they have for the world that they bleed dry.
They are the true pornographers
The real stylists in human perversion.
Rich educated tarts sit dumbly by
Watching their fortunes rise and fall
In the neatly pressed pin-striped trousers of the City.
Debutante whores in rich men's castles.

*
The ruling elite with their puppet figurehead
Queen Elizabeth the Second, Regina Virgina,
Strut about on the million of bodies
That they have sacrificed to gain their position.
Who are these leaders but those who have made violence pay?
Who are they but the inheritors of their ancestors greed and theft?
Their blood stained flags are rags to our future,
Tattered remnant of our individual rights.
These rulers are common murderers and thieves,
But still we bow before them.
For how long will the masses be so pathetically manipulated by God, Queen and Country?

*
For fucks sake where are we in all this?
We're given life yet we court death.
For Christ's sake how long? How long, oh Lord, how long?
Still we lay prostrate before a stylised figure on a crucifix.
As if the stone fool might be resurrected.
We are expected to bargain our lives for his
And join him in the ugliness of perpetual Christian guilt.
He hangs there as a remainder of our own subjugation.
Let it be known that he alone is Christ,
Those who dare emulate him shall suffer thus.
Each settlement is spiked with that stupid image,
Each conscience nailed to that diet of corruption.

*
Military acts are bathed in those gory tales.
Tired Marines, edgy to fuck and sleep, are blessed in his name.
Pious virgins in desire kneel in worship before the myth.
In anticipation of their own death, they await his coming.
Sweet Jesus have mercy on me.
Sweet Jesus, they share his agony.
Sweet Jesus, they share his misery.
Fuck his loaded deity.

*
Over half the world's population is starving,
Crucified by the greed of landowners,
Helpless against the imbalance of priorities
Practiced by the major powers who, if they wanted to, could help.
Every minute of the day millions upon million of pounds
Are spent on the machinery of war.
If only a half of that was spent on the machinery of peace,
There would be no more starvation on this planet.
Yet governments pay no heed to the cries of suffering,
They perhaps make token gestures to appease their consciences,
But no real improvements are made
Because to ensure control the superpowers need to maintain the imbalance.
Natives are slaughtered in their homelands
By governments seeking out new possessions.
Most of the wealth of the so called developed nations
Has been gained at the expense of the Third World
From whom natural resources, both mineral and human,
Have been unscrupulously exploited.
Peoples' pride and dignity is burnt in Napalm
And hand-held flame-throwers.
The poor and underprivileged are raped and tormented
By leaders who use their power not to assist, but to oppress.
At the wave of a gloved hand
These people can, and do,
Send young men to their death,
But not before others too have fallen from their bayonets and guns.
Such armies are invariably called 'peace keeping forces'.
The hypocrisy is as appalling as it is obvious.
The wealthy, educated, privileged and secure
Make the lives of those less fortunate a complete misery.
Million upon millions of people are dying from malnutrition
Because, to stabilise their economies, governments destroy food rather than giving it to the needy.

*
"Let them eat cake" said Marie Antoinette
As she wiped the calf's blood from her lips.

*
"Proud to be British" said Margaret Thatcher
As she wiped the Falkland's blood from her hands.

*
The ruling elite have no concept of what it is to suffer want,
Yet it is they who are directly responsible.
In a world where there are people who can't afford a crust of bread,
These arrogant scabs drive around in Bentleys and Rolls Royces.
Perhaps it amuses them to rub shit into the faces of the poor,
But there'll come a time when such overt displays of wealth
Will not be tolerated by the people in the street.
In a sane society wealth and possession would not be an asset.

*
A few years ago a politician was on the radio
Saying that no one in the UK suffered from want.
Next day I saw an old man pleading for a handful of coal;
His wife was dying of cold and he was penniless.
Maybe in the morning, as the politician sipped breakfast tea,
She lay cold and dead before the empty grate.
Every year thousand of people die of hypothermia,
Too hungry, too cold, too poor to stay alive.

*
At times of national crisis it's always the poor who suffer.
"Back Britain" we're told
As the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
At times of international crisis it's the same story.
"Back Britain" we're told
As the rich get richer and the poor get killed.
In the event of a nuclear crisis,
The rich will retreat to private bunkers with their wealth and possessions.

*
The injustice of inequality is sanctioned by the church.
With its tradition of finance from the gentry
The church has always been obliged
To ensure that its flock remains servile.
"Repent ye sinners or be devoured in the flames of hell."
Those very same flames that devoured their enemies in countless religious wars.

*
So often the church has marched hand in hand with the military
Casting its blessings upon the writhing bodies of the battlefield.
Each stab of bayonet is God's word.
Each crash of steel is God's word.
Each torn limb and splash of blood is God's word.
For he so loved the world he gave our only begotten sons.

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