Roger Waters – Amused to Death

Sometimes I pour a dram of Scotch or two, put on Roger Waters’ “Amused To Death”, turn it up loud, and just listen to the entire thing with my eyes closed.

“Perfect Sense, Part 1”

And the Germans kill the Jews
And the Jews kill the Arabs
And the Arabs kill the hostages
And that is the news
And is it any wonder
That the monkey's confused
He said Mama Mama
The President's a fool
Why do I have to keep reading
These technical manuals
And the joint chiefs of staff
And the brokers on Wall Street said
Don't make us laugh
You're a smart kid
Time is linear
Memory's a stranger
History's for fools
Man is a tool in the hands
Of the great God Almighty
And they gave him command
Of a nuclear submarine
Sent him back in search of
The Garden of Eden

“The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range”

You opened your suitcase
Behind the old workings
To show off the magnum
You deafened the canyon
A comfort a friend
Only upstaged in the end
By the Uzi machine gun
Does the recoil remind you
Remind you of sex

Old man what the hell you gonna kill next
Old timer who you gonna kill next

I looked over Jordan and what did I see
Saw a U.S. Marine in a pile of debris
I swam in your pools
And lay under your palm trees
I looked in the eyes of the Indian
Who lay on the Federal Building steps
And through the range finder over the hill
I saw the frontline boys popping their pills
Sick of the mess they find
On their desert stage
And the bravery of being out of range
Yeah the question is vexe

Old man what the hell you gonna kill next
Old timer who you gonna kill next

“Watching TV”

She wore a white bandanna that said
Freedom now
She thought the Great Wall of China
Would come tumbling down
She was a student
Her father was an engineer
Won't you shed a tear
For my yellow rose
My yellow rose
In her bloodstained clothes
Her grandpa fought old Chiang Kai-shek
That no-good, low-down dirty rat
Who used to order his troops
To fire on the women and children
Imagine that; imagine that
And in the spring of '48
Mao Tse-tung got quite irate
And he kicked that old dictator Chiang
Out of the state of China
Chiang Kai-shek came down in Formosa
And they armed the island of Quemoy
And the shells were flying across the China Sea
And they turned Formosa into a shoe factory
Called Taiwan

And she is different from Cro-Magnon man
She's different from Anne Boleyn
She is different from the Rosenbergs
And from the unknown Jew
She's different from the unknown Nicaraguan
Half superstar, half victim
She's a picture star, conceptually new
And she is different from the Dodo
And from the Kankabono
She's different from the Aztec
And from the Cherokee
She's everybody's sister
She's symbolic of our failure
She's the one in fifty million
Who can help us to be free
Because she died on TV

“What God Wants, Part 1”

What God wants God gets
God wants borders
God wants crack
God wants rainfall
God wants wetbacks
What God wants God gets
God wants voodoo
God wants shrines
God wants law
God wants organised crime
God wants crusade
God wants jihad
God wants good
God wants bad
What God Wants God gets
God help us all