Life Kills

Why worry about the lives we're trying to save

When we're born astride a grave?

Being healthy is carcinogenic -

Life's a game show called It's Epidemic.

Chorus

Life Kills Life Kills

Life's a sentence, read all about it.

Why aren't crocodiles vegetarian?

How come Attila wasn't a hunny?

Why didn't Hitler stay a librarian?

Why don't people find rock bands funny?

Who invented the businessman?

Who told bankers the meaning of loan?

Who gave us writer, critic and fan?

Who told teenagers they've got a mind of their own?

I'm going down to the Waterside Workers Hotel

I'll wear women's clothing, and I'll yell:

"Here's a broken bottle, boys - send me to hell."

With life as an alternative, I might as well.

I'm dying; I'm dying; I'm dying; life kills!

You're dying the moment the sperm hits the ovum;

You're dying as a foetus, breathing though gills;

You're dying at birth; there ain't no supposin' -

You die all your life, and even Blind Freddy

Knows your children will die - true perspective! -

Your parents will die (if they're not dead already);

Life is just death, made retrospective.

You're trapped all your life, from the very first moment,

By your mother and father, who must've been mad

When they decided to add to their own entombment

By having a child, like their own Mum and Dad's

Mum and Dad's Mum and Dad's Mum and Dad's Mum and Dad.

Philip Larkin described it in a poem; I cried:

Families, he said, in Home Is So Sad,

"Are a joyous shot at how things ought to be ... fallen ide."

It stays with you forever; you'll never lose it;

Your family has got you in a grip-like vice -

It's entrapment so effective you always choose it;

Put an ad in the paper: "Lost - Paradise."

You're always a daughter or always a son,

Even when mother's a loser and dad wants to bolt;

Do what you like, you can hide - but you can't run.

If your parents have split up, it's probably your fault.

Guilt clings to you like shit in a nappy,

Don't listen to what the counselors say -

Without you your parents may just have been happy:

It's war, and you're not escaping - you're running away.

Be a lawyer! Be a doctor! You're still putrid;

It's still true that your parents are rooted;

There's divorce in the air - at least, it's mooted -

If they took my advice they'd both get neutered.

It's the same in all homes. Be it penthouse or pavement,

Every house is so economically run:

Your parents give credit, and you give repayment -

You want asylum - instead, you end up in one.

There's no such thing as forgiveness; forget absolution;

Your life will be frittered away with worry and bills -

And you crowning achievement? Reproduction!

I'm dying; I'm dying; I'm dying; life kills!

You're gonna have children; you know it, you fuck -

You and your wife just don't know how many;

Part of me sorta wishes you luck,

'Cos I love children - and that's why I'm not having any.

And your family will fail; and your life will be torture;

And your wife will turn ugly; and your children be dills;

'Cos you haven't forgotten the lessons mum and dad taught a -

I'm dying; I'm dying; I'm dying; life kills!

I can see you with cancer both in and around you,

The internal expression of external ills;

I can see you dying with your family around you -

I'm dying; I'm dying; I'm dying; life kills!

I can see you look petulantly around you

At all the things that you've never had,

I can see the paramedics pound you

As you die a child, just like your dad.

Then your body is all that's left of what's been you -

The chest stops jerking and the movement stills,

The pus of the dead is coming up within you -

I'm dying; I'm dying; I'm dying; life kills!

Hold on a second, I wanna come with you!

I'm dying; I'm dying; I'm dying; life kills!

You're like a father; now you're gone, I'll miss you -

I'm dying; I'm dying; I'm dying; life kills!

Pain only stops when mothers kiss you -

I'm dying; I'm dying; I'm dying; life kills!