Sandinista! Lyrics Disc 1

Ring! Ring! It's 7:00 A.M.!
Move y'self to go again
Cold water in the face
Brings you back to this awful place
Knuckle merchants and you bankers, too
Must get up an' learn those rules
Weather man and the crazy chief
One says sun and one says sleet
A.M., the F.M. the P.M. too
Churning out that boogaloo
Gets you up and gets you out
But how long can you keep it up?
Gimme Honda, Gimme Sony
So cheap and real phony
Hong Kong dollars and Indian cents
English pounds and Eskimo pence

You lot! What?
Don't stop! Give it all you got!
You lot! What?
Don't stop! Yeah!

Working for a rise, better my station
Take my baby to sophistication
She's seen the ads, she thinks it's nice
Better work hard - I seen the price
Never mind that it's time for the bus
We got to work - an' you're one of us
Clocks go slow in a place of work
Minutes drag and the hours jerk

"When can I tell 'em wot I do?
In a second, maaan...oright Chuck!"

Wave bub-bub-bub-bye to the boss
It's our profit, it's his loss
But anyway lunch bells ring
Take one hour and do your thanng!
Cheeesboiger!

What do we have for entertainment?
Cops kickin' Gypsies on the pavement
Now the news - snap to attention!
The lunar landing of the dentist convention
Italian mobster shoots a lobster
Seafood restaurant gets out of hand
A car in the fridge
Or a fridge in the car?
Like cowboys do - in T.V. land

You lot! What? Don't stop. Huh?

So get back to work an' sweat some more
The sun will sink an' we'll get out the door
It's no good for man to work in cages
Hits the town, he drinks his wages
You're frettin', you're sweatin'
But did you notice you ain't gettin'?
Don't you ever stop long enough to start?
To take your car outta that gear
Don't you ever stop long enough to start?
To get your car outta that gear
Karlo Marx and Fredrich Engels
Came to the checkout at the 7-11
Marx was skint - but he had sense
Engels lent him the necessary pence

What have we got? Yeh-o, magnificence!!

Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi
Went to the park to check on the game
But they was murdered by the other team
Who went on to win 50-nil
You can be true, you can be false
You be given the same reward
Socrates and Milhous Nixon
Both went the same way - through the kitchen
Plato the Greek or Rin Tin Tin
Who's more famous to the billion millions?
News Flash: Vacuum Cleaner Sucks Up Budgie
Oooohh...bub-bye

Magnificence!!

FUCKING LONG, INNIT?

Hitsville U.K.

They cried the tears, they shed the fears,
Up and down the land,
They stole guitars or used guitars
- So the tape would understand,
Without even the slightest hope of a 1000 sales
Just as if, as if there was, a hitsville in U.K.,
I know the boy was all alone, til the hitsville hit U.K.

They say true talent will allways emerge in time,
When lightening hits small wonder -
Its fast rough factory trade,
No expense accounts, or lunch discounts
Or hypeing up the charts,
The band went in, 'n knocked 'em dead, in 2 min. 59

- No slimy deals, with smarmy eels - in hitsville U.K.
Lets shake'n say, we'll operate - in hitsville U.K.
The mutants, creeps and musclemen,
Are shaking like a leaf,
It blows a hole in the radio,
When it hasnt sounded good all week,
A mike'n boom, in your living room - in hitsville U.K.
No consumer trials, or A.O.R., in hitsville U.K.,
Now the boys and girls are not alone,
Now the hitsville's hit U.K.

Junco Partner

Down the road came a Junco Partner
For he was loaded  as can be
He was knocked out, knocked out loaded
He was a'wobblin' all over the street

Singing 6 months ain't no sentence
And one year ain't no time
I was born in Angola
Serving 14 to 99

Well I wish I had me  $1 million dollars
Oh one million to call my own
I would raise meat and say, "grow for me baby"
I would raise me a tobacco farm

Well I wish I would have me a great deal of money
Yeah and mighty good things all over town
Now I ain't got no more money
All of my good friends are putting me down

So now I gotta pawn my rifle and pistol
Yeah I'm gonna pawn my watch and chain
I would have pawned my seat Gabriella
But the smart girl she wouldn't sign her name

Give me headstone when I die

Ivan Meets G.I. Joe

So you're on the floor, at 54
Think you can last - at the Palace
Does your body go to the to and fro?
But tonight's the night - or didn't you know
That Ivan meets G.I. Joe

He tried his tricks- that Ruskie bear
The United Nations said it's all fair
He did the radiation - the chemical plague
But he could not win - with a cossack spin

The Vostok Bomb - the Stalin strike
He tried every move - he tried to hitch hike
He drilled a hole - like a Russian star
He made every move in his repertoire

When Ivan meet G.I. Joe

Now it was G.I. Joe's turn to blow
He turned it on - cool and slow
He tried a payphone call to the Pentagon
A radar scan - a leviathan

He wiped the Earth - clean as a plate
What does it take to make a Ruskie break?
But the crowd are bored and off they go
Over the road to watch China blow!

When Ivan meets G.I. Joe

Leader, The

Atom secrets, secret leaflet
Have the boys found the leak yet?
The molehill sets the wheel in motion
His downfall picks up locomotion

The people must have something good to read on a Sunday

The leader's wife takes a government car
In the dark to meet her minister
But the leader never leaves his door ajar
As he swings his whip from the Boer War

He wore a leather mask for his dinner guests
Totally nude and with deep respect
Proposed a toast to the votes he gets
The feeling of power and the thought of sex!

Now the girl let the fat man touch her
Vodka fumes and the feel of a vulture
The driver waited in the embassy car
The fat man's trap was set for capture
So the girl let the thin man touch her
Mixing questions, drunken laughter
The ministry car was waiting there
A minister knows his own affair

The people must have something good to read on a Sunday

Something About England

They say immigrants steal the hubcaps
Of the respected gentlemen
They say it would be wine an' roses
If England were for Englishmen again

Well I saw a dirty overcoat
At the foot of the pillar of the road
Propped inside was an old man
Whom time would not erode
When the night was snapped by sirens
Those blue lights circled fast
The dancehall called for an' ambulance
The bars all closed up fast

My silence gazing at the ceiling
While roaming the single room
I thought the old man could help me
If he could explain the gloom
You really think it's all new
You really think about it too
The old man scoffed as he spoke to me
I'll tell you a thing or two

I missed the fourteen-eighteen war
But not the sorrow afterwards
With my father dead and my mother ran off
My brothers took the pay of hoods
The twenties turned the north was dead
The hunger strike came marching south
At the garden party not a word was said
The ladies lifted cake to their mouths

The next war began and my ship sailed
With battle orders writ in bed
In five long years of bullets and shells
We left tem million dead
The few returned to old Piccadily
We limped around Leicster Square
The world was busy rebuilding itself
The architects could not care

But how could we know when I was young
All the canges that were to come?
All the photos in the wallets on the battlefield
And now the terror of the scientific sun
There was masters an' servants an' servants an' dogs
They taught you how to touch your cap
But through strikes an' famine an' war an' peace
England never closed this gap

So leave me now the moon is up
But remember all the tales I tell
The memories that you have dredged up
Are on letters forwarded from hell

The streets were by now deserted
The gangs had trudged off home
The lights clicked off in the bedsits
An' old England was all alone

Rebel Waltz

I slept and I dreamed of a time long ago
I saw an army of rebels, dancing on air
I dreamed as I slept, I could see the campfires,
A song of the battle, that was born in the flames,
and the rebels were waltzing on air.

I danced with a girl to the tune of a waltz
that was written to be danced on the battlefield
I danced to the tune of a voice of a girl
A voice that called "Stand till we fall
we stand till all the boys fall."

As we danced came the news that the war was not won
5 armies were coming, with carrige and gun
Through the heart of the camp
swept the news from the front
A cloud crossed the moon, a child cried for food
We knew the war could not be won.

So we danced with a rifle, to the rhythm of the gun
in a glade through the trees i saw my only one
Then the earth seemed to rise hell hot as the sun
The soldiers were dying, there was tune to the sighing.
The song was an old rebel one.

As the smoke of our hopes rose high from the field
My eyes played tricks through the moon and the trees
I slept as I dreamed I saw the army rise
A voice began to call, stand till you fall
The tune was an old rebel one.

Look Here

Look here!
What d'you think you're
Gonna be doin' next year?
No lie...
How you know you're not
Gonna up and die?
No doubt...

Soon enough your friends
Will find you out
Take care...
You know you might not have
Too much time to spare
I say...

How long have you been acting
Up this way?
One knows...
When you gonna get
Your own floorshow
I'm hip...
And you could use a button
On your lip

Look here
What d'you think you're
Gonna be doing next year
I'm hip!

Crooked Beat, The

Start the car lets make a midnight run
Across the river to South London
To dance to the latest hi-fi sound
Of bass, guitar and drum
Seeking out a rhythm that can take the pressure off
Stepping in and out of that crooked crooked beat

Take a piece of cloth, a coin for thirst
For the sweat will start to run
With a cymbal splash, a word of truth
And a rocking bass and drum
Seeking out a rhythm that can take the pressure on
Stepping in and out of that crooked crooked beat

So one by one they come on down
From the tower blocks of my home town
Stepping with the rhythm of the rockers beat
Drowning out the pressure of the crooked beat
Seeking out a rhythm that can take the tension on
Stepping in and out of that crooked crooked beat

It has crooked past this crooked street
Where cars patrol this crooked beat
Badges flsh and sirens wail
They'll be taking one and all to jail

Prance! Prance! You want a law to dance?

Somebody Got Murdered

Someone lights a cigarette
While riding in a car
Some ol' guy takes a swig
And passes back the jar
But where they were last night
No-one can remember
Somebody got murdered
Goodbye, for keeps, forever

Somebody got murdered
Somebody's dead forever

And you're minding your own business
Carrying spare change
You wouldn't cosh a barber
You're hungry all the same
I been very tempted
To grab it from the till
I been very hungry
But not enough to kill

Somebody got murdered
His name cannot be found
A small stain on the pavement
They'll scrub it off the ground
As the daily crown disperses
No-one says that much
Somebody got murdered
And it' left me with a touch

Somebody got murdered
Somebody's dead forever
Sounds like murder!
Those shouts!
Are they drunk down below?

It's late, and my watch stopped
Some time ago
Sounds like murder!
Those screams!
Are they drunk down below?

One More Time

Must I get a witness? for all this misery
There's no need to, brothers everybody can see
That its one more time in the ghetto you know
One more time if you please now
One more time to the dying man
They say one more time if you please

The old lady kicks karate
For just a little walk down the street
The little baby he knows kung fu
He tries it on those he meets
Cos its a one more time!

You don't need no silicone to calculate poverty
Watch when Watts town burns again
The bus goes to Montgomery

Cos it's a one more time in the ghetto
One more time if you please
One more time for the dying man
One more time to be free

One More Dub

Stop wastin' time
Right

One more breath

One more time in the ghetto
One more time if you please
One

One more time for the dying man
One more time if you please now

One more time

Lightning Strikes (Not Once But Twice)

Now lightning strikes in old New York
It may be dark but I wanna talk
It might rain, it might snow
Too many things I got to know
If this is spring than it's time to sing
Never mind the l'il birdies wing
Look out, look out, old New York
New York's coming an' New York talks
Hey! Strike! Not once...
Strike! But twice!

Get out your money - peel a slab
Roll some notes an' hail a cab
Drive in church drive in back
Drive down Seventh in a tank
Take in the sights, feel the breeze
See New York's one and only tree
It can be found in Garbage park
But don't inspect it after dark
Strike! New York! Lightning!
Not once but twice.

Accidental hike in the transit strike
Roller skate or ride a bike
Three to a car, Brooklyn Bridge
You won't get far if you're privileged
Graffiti Jack sprays in black
An Englishman can he read it back?
Deli Joe he ought to know
He runs the gang on Pastrami Row
Strike! Lightning strike!

Because glass to glass, street to street
Buildings touch St. Peter's feet
From car to bar, prez to shah
Everything is in the jar
The 4 winds blow cos the 4 winds know
Takes a special hustle to make a roll
Honey girl on her feet
I wish everything to make her sweet
Strike! Twice! OK so roll!
From Harlem! Strike one!

Harlem slum to penthouse block
On every door I already knocked
There wasn't anybody that I didn't leave alone
Somebody lying under every stone
Everything that a man could need
In a bag down by my knee
That looks good, this ain't got seeds
Cheaper than booze down in the bowery
Lightning strike! Old New York!
Everything's light! Strike!

Hey ho such a night
I'll see y'all when the lightning strike
A polaroid caught in the act
You're married too and that's a fact
But I won't peek and I won't squeek
Down by the trucks on Christopher Street
It's Cuban Day - Oi Vey
Chinese New Year let's call it a day
Tootsie! Hey Chi man!
That melody is Puerto Rican
Hey Chi man is what he's speaking
An' there's the road down into London Town
Where many cars get broken down
It's the Westway from Ladbroke Grove
Runs down to Old Hounslow
Just thought I'd mention the new extention
That run's down the 59th street intersection
Did you hear the news y'all?
London Town on the Broadway!

Up In Heaven (Not Only Here)

The towers of London, these crumbling rocks
Reality estates that the hero's got
And every hour's maked by the chime of a clock
And whatcha gonna do when the darkness surrounds?
You can piss in the lifts which have broken down
You can watch from the debris the last bedroom light
We're invisible here just past midnight

The wives hate their husbands and their husbands don't care
Their children daub slogans to prove they lived there
A giant pipe organ up in the air
You can't live in a home which should not have been built
By the bourgeoise clerks who bear no guilt
When the wind hits this building this building it tilts
One day it will surely fall to the ground...

Fear is just another commodity here
They sell us peeping holes to peek when we hear
A bang on the door resoundingly clear
Who would really want to move in here?
The children play faraway, the corridors are bare
This room is a cage its like captivity
How can anyone exist in such misery?

It has been said not only here

"Allianza dollars are spent
To raise the towering buildings
For the weary bones of the workers
To go back in the morning
To be strong in the morning"

Corner Soul

Is the music of grove skin rock
Soaked in the diesel of was boys war?
Blood, black gold and the face of a judge
Is the music calling for a river of blood?

Beat the drums tonight, Alphonso
Spread the news all over the grove
The big meeting has decided
That total was must burn on the grove

Does it mean I should take my machete
To chop my way through the path of life?
Does it mean I should run with the dog pack
Is that the way to be the one to survive?

Never need a gun says Tai Chi
Move on up to dragon snaps his tail
Fall back on still waters
Hammer with his eye on the nail

Spread the word tonight please, Sammy
They're searching everyhouse on the grove
Don't go alone now, Sammy!
The wind has blown away the corner soul

Tell the news for me, Sammy
They're searching every place on the grove
But don't go down alone new, Sammy!
The wind has blown away the croner soul

Is the music calling for a river of blood?

Let's Go Crazy

Summon up the mas! Play on the pan!
Staring dreads are jerking their locks
As the white star liner sank in the docks
But on the drummers face, there is a look of dread
As he drums away 400 years of dread
The dancer man-in the power of mas
Is smoking ti the mighty sparrow's blast

But you better be careful
You still got to watch yourself

You wanna be crazy
So you wanna go crazy
Let's go crazy
So you wanna be crazy
Then let's go crazy
Let's go crazy

The lawful force are here of course
For special offenders for the special court
But the young men know when the sun has set
Darkness comes to settle the debt
Owed by a year of S.U.S. and suspect
Indiscriminate use of the power of arrest

They're waiting for the sun to set

The mighty observer who keeps his cabinets hot
A great meeting of rhythm and face
A humming of values and a children's place
But the sticks man gives the copper good excuse
To shut off the ganja and control the juice

To control the juice

So you wanna go crazy? Then let's go crazy
So take it on crazy! So they get all crazy
Bricks and bottles corrugated iron
Shields and helmets carnival time
'N moa ambassa, sledgehammer sound
Ray symbolic from jamdown town

If Music Could Talk

*Left Channel*
Make sure!
Taking cover in the bunker tonight
Waiting for Bo Diddley's headlights
I feel alright
Gotta Fender Stratosphere
I can do anything tonight
It's in neon lights an' global rights
Frank? He's on the phone
There ain't no German girl outside
But who cares when its warm inside?
With music
Special mystery of music tragically
Exchanging slaves for majesties
Modern waves of tragedy
Packing a to pience colt pair of shoots
A shiny grey mexican suit
The blue eyed traffic can sashay by
'Cos tonight the sailor boys have hit Shanghai
The kick-out traffic goes creaking by
I smash my glass and shout shanghi
My drummer friend comes shooting by
He said Errol Flynn will never die
Oh no! Who am I to question why?
And are you lonesome tonight
And do ya need a country cowboy
Who's just thin and tight in those
Brrrr bus depot jeans
With a squirt resistant stud stud
Hey stoner

Get over there in the spliffbunker one
Becos London Bridge was sold somehow
But it was too old anyhow
When Uncle Sam has broken down
We'll make him down in old Japan
Say yeee

Well there ain't no better blend
Than Joe Ely and his Texas Men
Where the wind blows
I ain't seen none like that scenery
You can see from a bus if you pay the price

Wave my arms around
Flag one of those taxi's maybe
I saw a girl somewhere somehow
Forever sticks in my mind somehow
I've just got three lines
And a pair of two's
Like a lucky roll of dice that you
You cast

*Right Channel*
If music could talk!
Which means
Whatever your mind can bring
Likethe apple fell off the tree
Pah! Fell right on his head
Yeah many years ago

There was a man who said
I am a shaman
A voodoo shaman
Got in trouble so he's going out
Mixing up and Haiti! Oh!
And the crickets
Buddy Holly said it was
Brrr Brrr yiii!

If music could talk you know

I feel kinda lonely
Standing out on the floor
Of Electric Ladyland...
Cos this is a good question Samson
Are you partly Arabic?

Chi man! Whatcho all about

I don't want to I can't hope to
Say it all in one go
Occasionally once or twice
A day I feel alive enough to say
Let's hear what the drummerman's
Got to say about
He said is it Errol Flynn's birthday or not?
Sept 12 until October
If they pack 2 piece
Colt pair of shoots
We got the shiny grey Mexican suits
I'm just wasting a great big
Corporation and the entire fund
The girders of Wall Street
And thetemples of money
And the high priests
Of the expense account
And Im wasting the whole thing
I come down in Yamaha-ha
They make the best pianos-time to step-up

Sound of the Sinners, The

As the floods of God
Wash away sin city
They say it was written
In the page of the Lord
But I was looking
For that great jazz note
That destroyed
The walls of Jericho

The winds of fear
Whip away the sickness
The messages on the tablet
Was valium
As the planets form
That golden cross Lord
I'll see you on
The holy cross roads

After all this time
To believe in Jesus
After all those drugs
I thought I was Him
After all my lying
And a-crying
And my suffering
I ain't good enough
I ain't clean enough
To be Him

The tribal wars
Burning up the homeland
The fuel of evil
Is raining from the sky
The sea of lava
Flowing down the mountain
The time will sleep
Us sinners by

Holy rollers roll
Give generously now
Pass the hubcap please
Thank you Lord

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