I asked comedic political satirist songwriter Paul Spencer if he would like to be exposed on my site and he was into the idea. I think Paul’s songs are great models for songs which speak out against oppression with humour and gentleness. Paul has two albums available via the catalogue section of this site.
Be a Crap Vegan
by Paul Spencer – Track 10 from Waiting for Godzilla
mp3 download: Be a Crap Vegan [2.7MB]
Poor people starve from the moment they’re born
Working all day growing soya and corn
At the end of the year they’re still broke and forlorn
And the food gets eaten by cows and pigs.
Dairy cows dying of udder diseases
Caused by too many mechanical squeezes
And chickens are tortured in sheds with no breezes
You already know what the answer is
Be a crap vegan, I’m a crap vegan, be a crap vegan too
The way we’re treating animals
is worse than being cannibals
and not even good for you
But you cant give up bacon you’re hang over cure
and cheese seems so healthy you’re really not sure
and butter on toast has such golden allure
well the answers easy and it goes like this
gotta go vegan, I went vegan , be a crap vegan too
I only eat a smattering of blood and death and battering
And I reckon that will do.
I’d starve if I boycotted all things immoral
And sometimes I just cant be bothered to quarrel
I’m a soft human being not hard like a coral
Guess what my answer to a purist is?
Be a crap vegan , I’m a crap vegan
Be a crap vegan too
I only eat a smattering of blood and death and battering
And I reckon that will do
Unmarked Grave
by Paul Spencer – Track 11 from Waiting for Godzilla
Well who do you think these small wild flowers hide?
As you sit down and rest by this quiet grave side,
For the grave has no name nor a cross nor a stone
Just enough earth to cover the dead flesh and bone.
Do you think it’s a soldier who was killed in the war?
Coz there’s more graves like this one and they were’nt here before
Do you think it’s a young man who was sent here to fight?
Do you think if it was would that make it alright?
Do they mention the break-in’s? the torture, the raping?
And the weapons they’re making that poison the land?
Do you think of disease and starvation
When they talk of a new operation
For it could be the body of a sister or wife
An old man or woman, or a small child’s life
And the name won’t be listed when the fallen are read
Nor engraved on a statue to the glorious dead.
It might have been shrapnel or a house crashing down.
A land mine, or typhoid as it swept through the town
For the old and the sick and the ones who can’t run
Are more often killed than the man with the gun.
It’s almost like peace in this plain English town,
People go shopping and the sun’s shining down,
it’s two generations since the bombs fell on us,
No napalm, no landmines, no poisonous dust.
But millions of people still feel that dread
And hide inside crying from the planes overhead
Are we blindly indifferent to the terror of war
or can’t we remember the pain anymore?
And I cant help but wonder with the blood that’s been spilled,
Do all those who fought here know who they killed
Do they think they were soldiers signed up to the cause?
Do they think they stopped dying at the end of the war?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the horror, the pain,
They don’t seem so real, looking down from a plane
And the pilot might play the whole war like a game
But the people below feel the blast just the same
Keep the Prices Low
by Paul Spencer – Track 4 from Waiting for Godzilla
Strategic business management
Keep the prices low
Minimising money spent
Keep the prices low
Efficient operations, economies of scale.
And other words to make it sound like wisdom will prevail
Do anything.. anything
Just keep the prices low
The labour’s done in the Philippines
The staff are paid in kidney beans
Fear of unemployment keep the workers off their backs ,
While the company is pushing for another cut in tax.
Avoid environmental laws
Move to where they’re not enforced
I can turn the tap on and the waters clean and fresh
Coz the poison in the river is away in Bangladesh
Make it shoddy make it cheap
keep the prices low
make it nearly obsolete,
keep the prices low
look how much I’ve purchased with a pocket full of cash,
and when it falls apart on me I’ll throw it in the trash.
A million toys from a plastic mold
Make ten cents for each one sold
An easy way to make a hundred thousand of the best
Just buy them by the crate and sell them cheaper than the rest
Open up stores in every town
Force all the local prices down
Sell us things at less than cost for six months or a year
And we probably wont react when all the small shops disappear
Buying toys or bags of rice
Make sure you decide the price
Make them manufacture just exactly what you need
Then refuse to buy their product at the price that was agreed
Buy the stock you know will sell
Easy things that market well
Join the mediocrity of every other brand
in united aspiration for a constant shade of bland
Steal my paycheck every week
Hand it to the rich and sleek
Make your business wealthy so investors all get rich
We’ll like it or we’ll lump it and it doesn’t matter which
Do anything, anything, just keep the prices low