I always knew that I could seize
And show the possibilities
but also a solution: Permanent cultural revolution
Whenever I played my protest songs
Rolled out the red carpet,
But the petit bourgeois philistines
They preferred their artists
I showed the people how they lived and
Showed them the insanity in
And the archetypes and stereotypes
that were my stock in trade
Toppled all the ivory towers that
Though I tried to change your mind
I never tried your patience
All I tried to do was to point
But the powers that be took
this to be a personal insult
And refused to help me build
How did I pass my time an earth, what on
I left the normal world behind and started
dissolution and self discipline
I burned the midnight oil
to build my way of seeing
A miner at the coal face of meaning
The rich despised the songs I wrote which
told the poor their worth
Told the shy to speak and
told the meek to take the earth
But my downfall came from being three things
the working classes hated:
organised and over- educated
I became a hotel doorman,
I stood there on the doormat
Clutching my forgotten discs in
to all the stars who sauntered in
The ones who hadn't been like
me, who hadn't lived in vain
I gave up ideology the day I lost my looks
I never found a publisher for my
When I died the energy released
Was nearly enough for re- incarnation
the last thing that I'd be
Is a Maoist intellectual in the music industry
No, if I could live my life again I think
The man whose job is to stop
the men who think like me
Yeah! If l could live my life again
that'd be the thing to be
In the lives of the likes of me!
