30AU

Dance Music Committee December 1942 directive 2: “We have recently adopted a policy of excluding sickly sentimentality which, particularly when sung by certain vocalists, can become nauseating and not at all in keeping with what we feel to be the need of the public in this country in the fourth year of war.”
Carnaby Street
Come ye olde punks and moisturise
See the progress with global eyes
Pop to Armani for fashion tips
Or pay three quid for some milky coffee shit
Wardour Street lurked in its shadows of red
But now you won’t find any three-in-a-bed
A respectable marketing branch have we here
To produce propaganda and smooth out your fears
If you’re thinking of drinking a pint of real ale
You can fuck off to Cornwall or maybe to Wales
And don’t light a cigarette inside this bar
Or the bouncers will bounce you and leave you with scars
Camden Town market is next in our sights
You wasters and traders don’t have proper rights
And why do you think that we started the fire ?
To prepare the next step in the Starbucks empire !
Come ye old punks and moisturise
Wipe that tear from your mascara’d eyes
The old ways are going and nobody cares
Our investors are pleased with their stocks and their shares.
Come ye olde punks and moisturise
See the progress with global eyes
Pop to Hennes for fashion tips
Or pay three quid for some milky coffee shit.
(c) 2008 30 AU [(c) reg SUISA]
Armchair Warrior
I’m fighting a war
From the comfort of my armchair
I’m bringing peace to the Middle East
I’m subverting the terrorist
I’m a mercenary beast
I’m fighting a war
From the comfort of my office
I’m stirring up old sentiments
I’m airing them on the Internet
I’m not finished yet
I’m fighting a war
From the comfort of my ignorance
I’m deep behind enemy lines
Within my mind
I’m the partisan
I’m fighting a war
From the comfort of my home
The pension payments keep me warm
The gas fire burns ‘til dawn
And I’m all alone
I’m fighting a war
From the comfort of my armchair
I’m raining down napalm
Once more on Vietnam
It keeps me calm.
(c) 2008 30 AU [(c) reg SUISA]
Soft Target
How would you explain
To the families of the maimed?
I'm sitting here cross-legged
Shoeless at your behest
Respectful of your difference
Open-minded, with interest.
So how would you explain
To the families of the maimed
That their daughter, son or mother,
Or their father or sister or brother
Is missing an arm or a leg or their face
Consequential to your hate?
And how would you explain
To the families of the maimed
That the scriptures you invoke
And your hails to martyrdom
And your incitement to bomb
Is a calling from your god?
How would you defend
To the families of the dead
And those bleeding where the steel
Of the nails took their eyes
That you can truly rationalise
Your choice of soft target?
I'm sitting here cross-legged
Listening to you telling me
That no one would listen
If you did things peacefully.
And I'm thinking about my life
And I'm fingering my knife
Thinking... is it wrong to find a soft target?
(c) 2008 30 AU [(c) reg SUISA]
England
Oh England my England
Old homeland at that
So full of cunts
In Burberry caps
You needed The Streets to show you the way
He's driving his roller round Hampshire today
You needed The Smiths but now Morissey's fat
And the Queen is not dead and your rubber ring's flat
You needed the Floyd to say “Thatcher don't care”
Now Roger and David have dinner with Blair
Dad says "you needed to listen to stories of blood
So you failed to take note of the impending flood."
Oh England my England
Old homeland at that
Is so full of cunts
In Burberry caps
You needed the States when old Russia was mighty
(Now) the warmonger laughs of his friendship with blighty
Oh England I loved you
What weakness destroyed you
So England my homeland
I strive to avoid you ?
And now as we reap of the damage we sow
With some bacon and eggs and a starbucks to go
And we backtrack to remedy laws that we flouted
The eventual tally has yet to be counted
Oh England my England
What weakness destroyed you
So England my homeland
I vow to avoid you ?
(c) 2006 30 AU [(c) reg SUISA]
Poem for war journalists, by James Fenton
We spoke, we chose to speak of war and strife – a task a fine ambition sought – and some might say, who shared our work, our life: that praise was dearly bought.
Drivers, interpreters, these were our friends. These we loved. These we were trusted by. The shocked hand wipes the blood across the lens. The lens looks to the sky.
Most died by mischance. Some seemed honour-bound to take the lonely, peerless track conceiving danger as a testing ground to which they must go back
till the tongue fell silent and they crossed beyond the realm of time and fear. Death waved them through the checkpoint. They were lost. All have their story here.