Category: urban poetry

Reality TV (protest song)

 

The ‘Green Guide’ told us to watch the TV

It claimed that we would finally see reality.

Under the impression that truth is not a digression

I had to ask the question

As to why the strange things I saw that night

Were advertised as real and right

So I waited for the commercial break

To lose my concentration

As my attention wandered away

From the packet filled with cornflakes on the screen

To reality as it has been

From the cornflakes on the screen

To reality as it has been

 

So I looked out of my window

And saw that things were good –

The tree that I had planted

Was still standing where it should;

I thought it seemed real enough

I didn’t need to check

I saw a purple flower

But in the shade it looked black.

 

Then I looked up at the sky

Where the moon had been last night

The moon had gone and in its place

Was a glowing ball of light

A glowing ball of light

 

“Could this be real?” I wondered

As I looked on with delight

As the cotton clouds changed shape

To form a white dove bird in flight

But I knew that it was only a cloud I knew it was the sky

I didn’t wave my arms about

Thinking that I could fly!

 

I didn’t watch the box that night

To tell me what is wrong and what is right

But ‘reality’ blazed its bizarre beams

Into other minds and other brains

And I wonder how many were sane

With ‘reality TV’ in their brains

I wonder how many were sane

With ‘reality TV’ in their brains.

 

(words and music by Romesh Senewiratne-Alagaratnam, copyright 2004)

With One Voice “Peace” (protest song)

words and music by Romesh Senewiratne-Alagaratnam Arya Chakravarti, 2004

recorded in 2006

 

WITH ONE VOICE ‘PEACE’

 

Looking at the sunshine

But kept in the dark

The weatherman said it would be fine

Another glossy, casual remark

‘Cause a new war looms and we’ve seen it all before

A new war looms and we’ve seen it all before

 

The TV talks up the conflict again

It showed the friendly soldiers and some were weeping

It slowed the lonely viewers already sleeping

Said the special correspondent ‘the soldiers are despondent’

This time the administration has acted without consent

And its time to voice some real dissent

 

‘Cause a new war looms and we’ve seen it all before

A new war looms and we’ve seen it all before

 

No longer hypnotised by lies

The masses mobilized

To stop the growth of arms in the skies

The masses have been mobilized

 

They dance and march and wave placards

The poets and the singing bards

They say with one voice “No War!”

They say with one voice “Peace!”

They say with one voice “Peace!”

 

Answers in the Dark (original song)

Answers in the dark, the silence brooding

An idea begins with a spark, and dawn is looming

Not forgetting melancholy

As the mind drifts onwards, downwards

Memories of past follies Intrude into the daytime dreaming

Answers in the dark

Wondering what wisdom brings

Planning for the future

Drifting with the clouds

And the sky is like a rainbow

While the wild cats prowl

Deserts turn to forests

With the wisdom of an owl

When peace is more than an ideal

The pigeon settles with the dove

An open world beckons

Through the fears and anguish of love

 

Answers in the dark

Seeing what the new day brings

Deeper than the ocean

Is the song that nature sings

And the sky is like a painting

Always moving, always still

Life is still the main thing

In the vacuum of our will.

 

Retrospective Diagnosis (protest song)

I ask as I read

Your diagnoses of the dead

Of the madness of artists

And the ravings of poets –

Do you consider what’s said?

Do you think ANY poet sane?

How can you understand such a brain

When you treat metaphor with disdain?

 

I ask as I read

When you speak of Van Gogh

Diagnoses are made

And his brilliance fades –

Viewed as a freak

Diseased imagination

That glorified sunflowers

And saw beauty in the mundane

 

I ask as I read

The criteria you make

To call artists mad

Synonymous with bad

Prejudiced rules

Constructed by fools

With stupid textbooks

Created by crooks

With hidden agendas

Arrogant and friendless

 

Do you consider any poet “chemically balanced”?

Do you consider any artist “appropriately behaved”?

Or are poetry and art the very diseases

That you would rid the human race of?

The human race, tired of running

Round in circles

Driven ever faster, the human race

Sick of competing and climbing the ladder

Deeper into the sewer Of greedy profiteering

Relentless careering

Artists exploited, poets tortured

The victims cry out, but fear to be clear

They speak in metaphor

To hide their horror

They have seen the world as poets

As sensitive people

Not “schizophrenics”.

 

(words and music by Romesh Senewiratne-Alagaratnam Arya Chakravarti, 1999)

Guitars, bass and vocals by Romesh)

 

Walking Down the Fine Line (protest song)

WALKING DOWN THE FINE LINE

 

Walking down the fine line in an age of confusion

Walking down the fine line between truth and illusion

 

They argue for war, but if they’d seen what we saw

They break the law, but we’re not the fools they take us for

Though we’re walking down the fine line,

We’re walking down the fine line

 

Even the church has backed away

From the debate of the day

“Not a just war this time”, they say

“Not worth the price we’d have to pay”

Even the rabid warmongers wait

 

They don’t want to be viewed with hate

But they quietly terrorise the state

With warnings that time is getting late

 

And we’re walking down the fine line

We’re walking down the fine line

As politicians raise the alarm

The people are frightened of the calm

The bishop reads another psalm

And searches for words to serve as a balm

As more people march for peace

The prisoners and captives will be released

As shackles are disregarded and destroyed

Along with the army’s brand new toys

Maybe the generals will be detained For crimes against humanity and acid rain

The generals have had their day

Now it’s time to find a better way

They don’t care how many they slay

The priest commands the congregation to pray

But there’s got to be a better way, there’s got to be a better way

The taxman say’s we’ve got to pay

For the troops and the war and the games they play

But there’s got to be a better way

There’s got to be a better way.

 

(Words and music by Romesh Senewiratne-Alagaratnam Arya Chakravarti, 2003)

Guitars, bass, percussion and vocals by Romesh

 

 

AWB Wheat Scandal (protest song)

A song about the bribes paid by the Australian Wheat Board (AWB) and BHP to Saddam Hussein’s regime, while the Australian government was preparing to invade Iraq.

 

WHEAT SCANDAL

 

Another scandal has erupted

The Cole Inquiry is in the news

We’ve heard the wheat trade is corrupt

And we’re finding out who knew

 

The companies in question

Giants in their trade

The Big Ones playing big bribes

The secret deals were made

 

They knew about the kickbacks

That we know is true

The bribes were paid and the deals were made

As talk of war grew too

 

They said “I know nothing”

But we know what they said wasn’t true

We know that they knew ’cause it’s all in the news

But did they know that we knew, too?

 

The Wheat Board had a single desk

It was called Monopoly

The boardmen played the board game

And they paid the banker too

 

Then BHP saw profits In a country between wars

The UN had it’s oil for food

And passed out many laws

 

Then the people of the world cried “foul!”

And they said the children starved and died

The regime they attacked in words

Was also paid in bribes

A ‘humanitarian gesture’, paid with interest

Mr Cole called it a ‘soft bribe’

But the men who paid it were hard as stone:

Cowboys in the Third World

With plenty cash and guns

Cowboys in the Third World

If you see them, you better run

 

They knew about the kickbacks

That we know is true

The bribes were paid and the deals were made

While talk of war grew too

 

They said “I know nothing”

But we know what they said wasn’t true

We know that they knew ’cause it’s all in the news

But did they know that we knew that they knew too?

 

Their pictures on the TV

The cowboys aren’t ashamed

They pose for the cameras

And then try to share the blame

How high does it go?

Is it right to the top?

Do the roots of corruption

Hold big business to the ground?

 

They knew about the kickbacks

That we know is true

We know that they knew ’cause it’s all in the news

But did they know that we knew that they knew too?

 

(words and music by Romesh Senewiratne-Alagaratnam Arya Chakravarti)

Guitar, harmonica and vocals by Romesh