ANTI-FLAG - ONE TRILLION DOLLARS

One trillion dollars could buy a lot of bling
One trillion dollars could buy most anything
One trillion dollars buying bullets, buying guns
One trillion dollars in the hands of killers, thugs

Woah-oh-oh woah-oh woah-oh-oh-oh
Fuck the world a lot of people gotta die tonight
Woah-oh-oh woah-oh woah-oh
Fuck the world
Fuck ‘em all

One trillion dollars in Africa, Iraq
One trillion dollars and it’s never coming back
One trillion dollars could buy some bad ass drugs
One trillion dollars makes me wanna kill myself

Woah-oh-oh woah-oh woah-oh-oh-oh
Fuck the world a lot of people gotta die tonight
Woah-oh-oh woah-oh woah-oh
Fuck the world, yeah, yeah
Fuck ‘em all

Until the sun burns from the sky
Until the sun burns so bright this world is no more
Sun burns from the sky…
And all the people are just dust on the ground

One trillion dollars could buy a heart, a soul
One trillion dollars buying nations … all the world
One trillion dollars could make the fat ladies sing
One trillion dollars, what a bullshit useless thing

Woah-oh-oh woah-oh woah-oh-oh-oh
Fuck the world a lot of people gotta die tonight
Woah-oh-oh woah-oh woah-oh-oh-oh
Fuck the world a lot of people gotta die tonight
Woah-oh-oh woah-oh woah-oh-oh-oh
Shit loads of money spent will show us wrong from right
Fuck the world
Fuck ‘em all.

FLOGGING MOLLY - DRUNKEN LULLABIES

Must it take a life for hateful eyes
To glisten once again
Five hundred years like Gelignite
Have blown us all to hell
What Savior rests while on his cross we die
Forgotten freedom burns
Has the Shepherd led his lambs astray
to the bigot and the gun

Must it take a life for hateful eyes
To glisten once again
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin’ drunken lullabies

I watch and stare as Rosin’s eyes
Turn a darker shade of red
And the bullet with this sniper lie
In their bloody gutless cell
Must we starve on crumbs from long ago
Through these bars of men made steel
Is it a great or little thing we fought
Left a conscience blessed to kill

Must it take a life for hateful eyes
To glisten once again
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin’ drunken lullabies

Ah, well maybe it’s the way we’re taught
Or maybe it’s the way we fought
But a smile never grins without tears to begin
For each kiss is a cry we all lost
Though nothing is left to gain
But for the banshee that stole the grave
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin’ drunken lullabies

I sit and dwell on faces past
Like memories seem to fade
No colour left but black and white
And soon will all turn grey
But may these shadows rise to walk again
With lessons truly learnt
When the blossom flowers in each our hearts
Shall beat a new found flame

Must it take a life for hateful eyes
To glisten once again
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin’ drunken lullabies

FLOWERS & BULLETS

Of course:
Bullets don’t like people
who love flowers,
They’re jealous ladies, bullets,
short on kindness.
Allison Krause, nineteen years old,
you’re dead
for loving flowers.

When, thin and open as the pulse
of conscience,
you put a flower in a rifle’s mouth
and said,
“Flowers are better than bullets,”
that
was pure hope speaking.

Give no flowers to a state
that outlaws truth;
such states reciprocate
with cynical, cruel gifts,
and your gift, Allison Krause,
was the bullet
that blasted the flower.

Let every apple orchard blossom black,
black in mourning.
Ah, how the lilac smells!
You’re without feeling.
Nothing, Nixon said it:
“You’re a bum.”
All the dead are bums.
It’s not their crime.
You lie in the grass,
a melting candy in your mouth,
done with dressing in new clothes,
done with books.

You used to be a student.
You studied fine arts.
But other arts exist,
of blood and terror,
and headsmen with a genuius for the axe.

Who was Hitler?
A cubist of gas chambers.
In the name of all flowers
I curse your works,
you architect of lies,
maestros of murder!
Mothers of the world whisper
“O God, God!”
and seers are afraid
to look ahead.
Death dances rock-and-roll upon the bones
of Vietnam, Cambodia -
On what stage is it booked to dance tomorrow?

Rise up, Tokyo girls,
Roman boys,
take up your flowers
against the common foe.
Blow the world’s dandelions up
into a blizzard!
Flowers, to war!
Punish the punishers!
Tulip after tulip,
carnation after carnation
rip out of your tidy beds in anger,
choke every lying throat
with earth and root!
You, jasmine, clog
the spinning blades of mine-layers.

Boldy,
block the cross-hair sights,
drive your sting into the lenses,
nettles!
Rise up, lily of the Ganges,
lotus of the Nile,
stop the roaring props
of planes pregnant
with the death of chidren!
Roses, don’t be proud
to find yourselves sold
at higher prices.
Nice as it is to touch a tender cheek,
thrust a sharper thorn a little deeper
into the fuel tanks of bombers.

Of course:
Bullets are stronger than flowers.
Flowers aren’t enough to overwhelm them.
Stems are too fragile,
petals are poor armor.
But a Vietnam girl of Allison’s age,
taking a gun in her hands
is the armed flower
of the people’s wrath!
If even flowers rise,
then we’ve had enough
of playing games with history.

Young America,
tie up the killer’s hands.
Let there be an escalation of truth
to overwhelm the escalating lie
crushing people’s lives!
Flowers, make war!
Defend what’s beautiful!
Drown the city streets and country roads
like the flood of an army advancing
and in the ranks of people and flowers
arise, murdered Allison Krause,
Immortal of the age,
Thorn-Flower of protest!

  — Yevgeny Yevtushenko (English translation by Anthony Kahn)

Dedicated to Allison Krause, one of the four students killed on May 4, 1970 in the Kent State Massacre.

Roddy Frame - Oblivious

From the mountain tops down to the sunny street,
A different drum is playing a different kind of beat.
It’s like a mystery that never ends.
I see you crying and I want to kill your friends.

I hear your footsteps in the street,
It won’t be long before we meet,
It’s obvious.
Just count me in and count me out and
I’ll be waiting for the shout,
Oblivious…

Met Mo and she’s okay, said no-one really changed,
Got different badges but they wear them just the same.
But down by the ballroom I recognized that flaming fountain
in those kindred caring eyes.

I hear your footsteps in the street,
It won’t be long before we meet,
It’s obvious.
Just count me in and count me out and
I’ll be waiting for the shout,
Oblivious…

I hope it haunts me ’til I’m hopeless,
I hope it hits you when you go,
And sometimes on the edge of sleeping
It rises up to let me know it’s not so deep,
I’m not so low.

I hear your footsteps in the street,
It won’t be long before we meet,
It’s obvious.
Just count me in and count me out and
I’ll be waiting for the shout,
Oblivious…

They’re calling all the shots, they’ll call and say they phoned,
They’ll call us lonely when we’re really just alone.
And like a funny film, it’s kinda cute
They’ve bought the bullets and there’s no-one left to shoot.

I hear your footsteps in the street,
It won’t be long before we meet,
It’s obvious.
Just count me in and count me out and
I’ll be waiting for the shout,
Oblivious…