A Broken Promised Land

See the red "messiah" high upon a soap-box pulpit

Agitating his apostles with the gospels in his hand

While apprentice hitlers gather down in inner city subways

To immortalise their ignorance with aerosol spray cans.

Life is the lesson - History our tutor

Learn from the past - preserve us a future.

So many causes I could die for - but I don't know which is right

In this millenia of martyrs and injustices to fight

Why must brother kill his brother - when united they should stand?

Men by swords and words divided in our broken promised land.

These tattered battle standards fly - their colours do not run

Unlike our tears that trickle down the decades soon to come.

You promised us a "Golden Age" - we couldn't wait to try it

But never told us of the blood we'd have to shed to buy it!

[Chorus:]

We are brought forth with nothing we struggle for nothing

And then unto nothing return.

Though their words have no meaning - to question them: "Treason!"

Look back - watch the pages of history burn

Our Devil has two wings (both left wing and right)

They carry him far on this anarchic flight

'Til the fools of all nations now at his commmand

Bring darkness to once green (now unpleasant) lands.

The voices on your TV are like whispers in a dream

Someone else's nightmares in a place you've never been

But the streets run red round Tianneman Square - and the blood won't wash away

You don't recognise their faces - so young and dead they stay.

You've never had to answer to the barrel of a gun

So how could you expect... (expect what was to come?)

In the troubled streets of Moscow - and in tenements in Moss Side

There are people using silver tongues to turn dissenting worms

How can the dissatisfaction of some left or right wing faction

Hope to justify the bombs that burst - the innocents that burn.

We move in vicious circles as we fan the fires of hate

And laugh as the 'Four Horsemen' clamour at the starter's gate.

[REPEAT CHORUS]

Preserve us a future.