Chumbawamba

Chumbawamba - Flesh and Blood and Feelings lyrics

Margaret Thatcher lives in Ronald Reagan's underpants

She's been there for eight years cooking up her plan

To make the UK like big brother USA

Where selfmade men run everything and this is what they say

"Once upon a time, we had an idea

Mr Big thought it was a damn good idea

Together we made the idea strong

And before too long they could do no wrong

As the idea grew, the number of poeple who dug our idea grew too

We had a graphic designed who know just what to do

he made it plain and simple, red, white, and blue"

Red is the blood of the butchered Indians

White is Anglo-American apartheid

Blue is the "Gee, I'll die for my country" mentality

That made it all possible

Our history, made from other people's misery

Our history, built on other people's poverty

A present, the world into which we were born

I say, I say, I say, what's the biggest thing in the world today?

It's the myth that men are big, that includes us lads

The myth that we've got a rocket down our pants

When I was ten years old I was bought and sold

On films, TV, books, and comics pushing myths about Mr. Big

Rock it!

"To be someone in this world you gotta have a big, big penis. Not much else matters, just as long as you got a wapping great wanger. The bigger it is, the bigger you are, and you gotta use it!"

Mr Big's the bigger it is the more power it packs

Mr. Big's shiny prick nuclear dick

How do we measure up to it?

At the age of twelve I thought to myself,

"It's gonna grow"

For the next seven years I kept a check of things down below

It didn't grow

Now look at me on the front of this record

Admittedly it's not erect

But even allowing for exaggeration there's no comparison with

This microphone, Sylvester Stallone

Electric guitars, sports cars

Errol Flynn, Jimmy Hill's chin

Stars and stripes and rubber pipes

F-111 bombers and The Contras

Post office tower penis power

Muscles and sweat cigarettes

Ronald Reagan's smile cruise missiles

Fourteen, fifteen, going on sixteen

No growth down below if you know what I mean

I kept it very quiet, I felt a lot embarrassed

I didn't like going in public toilets

At school I skipped showers

The State separatism of an all-boys school

I couldn't relate to girls, there were different rules

I just wanted to kiss girls, put my hand up their dress

They did right not to like it, 'cause women are not fuckin' objects

Like with anything else which we keep to ourselves

We end up taking it out on somebody else

It becomes a big thing without being big at all

I felt very inadequate, confused, and small

We hide our feelings, our flesh and our blood

Start putting out Mr. Tough

To be larger than life, more than just flesh and blood

Like the dickheads at shool, at gigs and in pubs

We pretend it doesn't hurt as we beat each other up

In our confusion we want to be more than flesh and blood

Like the good guys on TV, we pretend to have no feelings

It's easier to avoid the emotional scenes

So when it comes to our lives we do not see who we're hurting

Like the good guys on TV we don't know our own feelings

All I needed was demystification

And it's as simple as this

We're flesh and blood and feelings, nothing more and nothing less

Flesh and blood and feelings, nothing more and nothing less

Flesh and blood and feelings, nothing more and nothing less

Flesh and blood and feelings, nothing more and nothing less

I say, I say, I say, what's the biggest idea in the world today?

Us losing sight of feeling reality, instead, putting our faith in democracy

Churchill died in 1965, but God and country survived

As a lad I was full of it, it took me twenty years to see through it

The state freedom which keeps us in our place

Which keeps us blind to how governments operate

And gives us war to cover our insignificance

And gives Thatcher what she wanted

A vote of thanks, victory for Britain, oppression with a smile

Everybody's happy, the Union Jack's on the jack again over Port Stanley

Young growing lads are watching every move

To see how they measure up

Growing up confused, like I did

'Cause their minds are being messed up

The pretending becomes the reality as we turn out the lights

Turn on the power and fuck the consequences

The reality of rape and violence

From the bedrooms to the backstreets

And the mass-manufactured murder

From the boardrooms to the battlefields

The reality of their freedom

Behind the smiles, the lies, the celebrations

The price of trying to forget ourselves

Trying to hide but still being racked with pain

Such is the life they would have us lead

To kill or be killed for their idea

Where's the freedom, I ask, in being told what to do?

And living in constant fear?

If we're ever gonna change this thing

We've got to try and find a way from within

Within our heads, amidst our own confusion there must be something

Something real, a feeling which is not for sale

Which they can't drown

A love for each other, and a will to resist the people who will try to keep us down

Like Northern Ireland, Nicaragua, Grenada, Libya

The Free World Penis Power intervention is so similar

Where flesh and blood and feeling people

Fighting for their lives, trying to resist

Are tortured and killed by democracies and labelled terrorists

Flesh and blood and feelings, nothing more and nothing less

Flesh and blood and feelings, nothing more and nothing less

Flesh and blood and feelings, nothing more and nothing less

Flesh and blood and feelings, nothing more and nothing less

Flesh and blood and feelings, nothing more and nothing less

Peoplekind just trying to find some sense in all of this mess

Something real, a feeling which will never be for sale

A love for each other, a will to resist those who will build our prison walls

Flesh and blood and feelings, nothing more and nothing less

(Repeat and fade)

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