Over the Fence
Can't stop this constant nod. Just met two peas from the next-door pod. Seems like making a brand new friend but all this shaking never ends. Invitations to join in things I haven't done since seventeen. Photos from places I still haven't been postponing and phoning faces unseen. Slightly nervous… Thinking backwards… Up and over it! Someone else's experience. Someone else is over the fence. No more blank comparison sketch. No more false impressions left. Had to go…things to do…you know how it is…it went from this to further over and back again. Always make it back again.

Revolution
360 degrees later and circling around discarded slogan piles, everyone had a better idea; let's work together for change/for a change. But the R word had to go. Too much of a buzzword, it sells almost anything you need (although good causes may settle in transit, and the actual product may appear different than advertised.) Revolution pictures a solid, a whole packaged event that addresses everything at once. The reality is that all change is gradual and a build-up of individual/localized/spontaneous actions and reactions, plenty of things happen overnight, but not all at once, and not nicely or cleverly coordinated by any one person or set of principles. Anyone talking of "mass movements" is using the language of after-the-fact historians, who have the luxury of compressing hundreds of revo-bellious moments into that one phrase; and anyone claiming that their set of ideals is THE way to revolutionize your life: is working out soundbites.

When the people's revolution is the stuff of science fiction, then the sense of evolution is deranged into thinking your solution is the easy contradiction to the way you had the problem re-arranged. No, I don't think so. Which is obvious to me, but can't you blinkered visionaries all comprehend how unrealistic it must be to alter all the problems until the facts are all forgotten and solutions blow out on the morning breeze? No, I don' t think so. Where's your revolution now? When will you come to realize the more you tend to theorize the actuality of life recedes? And the daily devastation - maybe daily revelation - is forgotten in the future you conceive. So any people's revolution is not down to your conclusions concerning how we change to suit your needs. For if everyone is what they are, then change can only go as far as people want to change their destiny. No, I don't think so. Where's your revolution now?

Out of Control
I used to smile at the camera, but now it is on every corner and everyone is staring ignorant; or tired of caring; or just completely used to feeling watched all the time; or holding back a sense of freedom that comes out late at night. It's out of control! Orwell's future science fiction ended up a near prediction smug the rebel's lonely chorus, "We saw it before it saw us." Flick the page to a few years later, the novelty is out of date - a problem redefined as gone. Now we're told it's what we wanted. It's out of control! Now everyone's on camera. Everyone's an actor. There's a random factor. Someone took away the screen e-motion pictures in 3D, beyond control the human being is freer than the one projected. Being watched to keep control of "crime" - a buzzword has its hold. Another, such as "you" - it makes us follow where the message takes us: either down the path to silence, where no one does more than they're told; or to the realization: our containment needs permission. Our acceptance paves the way that makes it worse when we get old. Grandad had so much to say, but al his anger has gone cold. Tried and tested, failed suppressed. Then new technology invested here's the future human being: silent, nervous, dead, or screaming, "No! This is out of control!"

Picture This - The invention of Television
Well they said it couldn't be done but they always had it in mind. A picture machine! Like a radio but a three-dimensional kind. Seeing what words could only say, extending the view so far away. So much to see, so much to show, let's see how far this thing can go. What's on TV? Well they said it shouldn't be done but they always had it in mind, charge a fee for the quality and a bigger one to advertise. Too many viewpoints go unheard when money talks so undisturbed. Here's the market - fill the blanks. For exploitation, we say, "Thanks!" Thank you! What's on TV? Well they said it couldn't be done but they plugged into our minds. A one-way delivery feeding tube of reality simplified. Now our thoughts are in mass production. Our nerves de-sensitized. This apex of invention has replaced our ears and eyes. I'd rather sing songs about nature, being happy, or having fun, but I asked at the desk when I got here, and they said it couldn't be done. Too much TV! More at ease with songs against TV, that's something we can all know about. And we'd rather get off on the hatred than imagine living without. I been watching too much telly, almost turned my brain to jelly. Now I'm playing my cassettes. Get back to music before you forget. Turn it off!

Internal Release
Sat round a table, "So what do you do?" I put my neuroses on public view. Everyone sat round something to say, but contradicting it all with, "Have a nice day?" When I said, "Well, no not really" aiming to let go of a lonely feeling, I sensed a tension unexpected. Normal question got re-directed, didn't it? You know I was taught that that's what friends are really for. This is a cry for communication. This is a sample of alienation. So I looked up from starting what may never end to see you looking for another friend. Are all your acquaintances so happy inside that simplistic answers are the only replies you get? And so it goes on. If everyone's happy, then what could be wrong? Needing to know that surrounded by plastic transient values and rapid-fire thrills, this internal release need not be so drastic as to create perceptions that none of us feel. This is a cry for communication. This is a sample of alienation.

Autographs
After the gig and keen to share the end result of feeling aware but its autographs that you want me to sign. I write my name but it's not even mine… It's yours. Hang it up on your wall. I hope you get over it. Do a bit more. Cause playing the game is the game itself. Where all you get told is all you can tell. Labels define, and their opposition defines as well. Puts you in a position. Label it "alternative." What does that mean? A token cog in a music machine. It's always easier to follow the leader, the lowest common denominator, all dressed up as a motivator. Fuck the system? Yeah, see you later. "Fuck the system" X4. Seems like we heard it all before. Several years back and we all got a clue. Resistance fed what we said we'd do. Now several years on it's like it all belongs to the history books - well that's how it looks, the regeneration of the blank generation. Forgetfulness, that's all it took. Rebellion into fashion, and fashion creates names to be signed on bits of paper. It's all part of the game, a continuance of the process. All you want is autographs. Where has all the meaning gone? And why do I have to ask?

Back to Zero
Had a friend he would spend all his time going mad. Never heard more absurd his new versions of "crazy horses." Finger to the head, everybody said he was cracked. He was out there, but somehow he always came back. Back to Zero. Then he got put away up to the hospital. Back to zero. They let him out, now he's got nothing to say. The lesson learnt was to never return to that place. Creating fear with control of your character on prescription. Now he smiles like his files are being held to his face. If he did resist a bit, it wouldn't fit, and there he goes again, back to zero. He plays it safe but feels deranged. Back to zero. Just waiting for the call, "We're taking all you know away." They call you mad, feed you drugs, say you're cursed, and you're free to keep in line with the threat they can do as they please. Scapegoats for the rest of us we sus, it's all you and me. In and out of institutions repetitions and exclusion. Likes they sell you make you doubt your sanity. But when they tell you, "You must come back where you've just been." You'll have no chance to tell them, "No, I'm ok now." Back to zero.

Choice of Viewing
Your poison is my antidote. What keeps you down, keeps me afloat. Perceiving, as you believe in it, that media shapes were never meant to fit the holes you create to fit them in. But you adjust and the fiction wins again. The pictures from the TV screen contain a lot more than what it really seems. But to be there seeing it all for real: Is it too much to contemplate? Is it too much to feel? Cause the image is all, until it disappears to be instantly replaced. What do we do with the information? Who selects your choice of viewing? Why don't we lose the hesitation that keeps us looking instead of doing? The first thing to do (and now not later) is to quit the position of mere spectator. Be your own motivator. Look to the inside, be the creator. Now not later. Not for others to blindly follow - see how the influence works - but to give you a space that isn't so hollow, where no one but you has the words and the pictures to fit what you're saying, from what only you have though out. When the media form your opinion you forget what real life's about.

Lose the Instructions
Get mad, as loud as possible! Lose the instructions, lose control. Everyone does it when they're on their own. Nobody hears, so no image gets blown. Every intention scared of the critic. It's never enough being called "pathetic." Sometimes anger starts to invade the outside image we're given to play. Sometimes thoughts can't replace intuition. Talking too loud, reaching no decision. Are you creating or folding under? I heard you scream, it sounded like thunder, but hollowed out amidst the fashion all the scorn, without the passion. Here's the original, here' the reaction. All laid out - smug satisfaction. No! It's all pre-arranged. Someone did it once, so we do it again. Routine monotony, kills us all. So lets get unpredictable!

Somewhere to Go
I hear the sound of bells and sirens, wired alarmed and face to face. Intruder in exclusion zone, looking for a sleeping place. Locks and clocks and iron bars, barking dogs, securicars, electric light and concrete grass. Getting scared to even ask. Somewhere to go: without being arrested; without being scared; without being questioned; where somebody cares. Put on screen to serve the public there's the problem now drop the subject. Asked some questions un-requested, next day quietly arrested. Token trials to stop the rumors, hordes of desperate non-consumers in a rush to beat the systematic silencing of their existence. They brought in all their cameras and they made a film about us, about my friends and all their problems, now we're on the television. They made a documentary, showed it late night on TV. Raising audience figures for the regular advertisers. The public conscience shivered, then turned the TV over. This is homelessness delivered too close to home…

Shrink the Distance
If we're going to say 'okay' to submission at the border, who if anyone will say, "I don't believe in Law and Order?" All the thoughts of alienation, feeling guilt through association, appearance altered, fit the plan, making it as easy as we can. All you got is regulation. All I got is inspiration. All I get is your resistance. I just want to shrink the distance. Welcome? Hardly! Face the flag. Total strangers rape my bag. I had no room to pack the bomb, where do you think I'm coming from? Travel broadens the mind and here's the threat to humankind, if you go so far you leave behind all the notions in your mind. Freedom comes in losing stability so-called "forced' to use your ability to cope with unknown situations soon destroys the notion of nations. But I just want to see the planet before I die. How can it be so hard to cross this borderline between what's yours and what is mine? I just want to see the planet before I die. Separate lands, it's all possession guarded with some warped obsession of control - you want to come in? It all depends on where you've been! I'm sick of doing what I'm told, stay at home, grow up, feel old. Feeling young is not quite knowing - until you've gone - just where you're going.

Will Swap
If I want a bargain I avoid the high street shops, I check the local papers to see who needs what I've got and who has what I can't afford. When I can't afford a lot, someone else in this position. Ok, let's do a swap. Will swap - what have you got? Ain't go no money - don't own it, can't loan it. Ain't go no credit - won't get it, yeah, forget it. Will swap this poverty/property for all the things I need/for all I really need. Things you've never seen before are left outside to rot. There's food and furniture in skips and most are still unlocked. Surplus raw materials are shelves and building blocks. If you don't want it, someone will, why not do a swap? Will swap homelessness for squats. Hunger for surplus tons of food. Anger for a reason. So few have got so much with so many hopelessly demanding, "Will do anything!" - "Anything will do!" So here's the barter system on the pages at the back. Will swap commercial interest for a rummage in your sack. Will swap your CCTV for an unrecorded chat. We'll swap a few priorities and watch the Wall Street crash.