Tag: Lyrics

  • Roots Run Deep

    Roots Run Deep



    REBELLIOUSBARD

    Britain wasn’t a blank page
    waiting for somebody to write on it.

    Roots Run Deep rejects the increasingly familiar description of Britain as little more than a succession of arrivals. Beneath the convenient slogans is an ancient native history, stretching through generations of people, places, names and ancestry that cannot simply be edited out of the national story. The song argues that recognising those roots should require neither apology nor permission, and that a country capable of celebrating every identity except its own has forgotten something fundamental about itself.

    Fellow Veteran



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    FOR THE RECORD

    They keep telling us Britain’s just a hotel on the shore
    A blank page for whoever washes up

    Built by migrants, they say with a knowing smile
    Romans, Saxons, waves across every mile
    But the land remembers every bone in the clay
    Ancient names carved in stone that refuse to fade away
    Celtic roots running centuries deep
    Now dismissed like a story we’re no longer allowed to keep

    Talking heads rewrite the tale so clean and neat
    While the foundations crumble beneath our feet

    Roots run deep, but they’re desperate to bury the past
    Celtic Britons were here long before the latest cast
    Not a blank canvas, not just another phase
    This island has memory they’re frantic to erase
    Roots run deep, in the blood, in the stone
    While they celebrate the new and mock our own
    This is home, not a footnote in their grand design
    Stand your ground… while there’s still time

    Cameron called it “great because” with polished ease
    Blair stitched a fabric without the original weave
    London’s mayor says it belongs to everyone now
    Funny how the natives are told to take a bow
    Praise every new arrival, scorn the ancient core
    Then act surprised when the cracks begin to show

    History becomes dangerous when the numbers climb high
    Memory labelled toxic in these modern times

    Roots run deep, no more rewriting the past
    Celtic Britons were here first, and that truth will last
    Not replaced, not ashamed, not a relic to discard
    This land has memory, and it’s weary, weary and scarred
    Roots run deep… hear the whisper in the stone
    Before the Britain we knew is completely overthrown

    Roots run deep… roots run deep
    This is home
    Don’t let it sleep
    History remembers

    WHY THIS SONG EXISTS

    Roots Run Deep was not written in response to one particular news story. It came from the continuing argument in Britain, and increasingly across Europe, over native identity, mass migration and who can claim a meaningful historical connection to the country they call home. RebelliousBard rejects the idea that centuries of migration make Britain a blank canvas with no native people or inheritance worth defending. The song was written because that history matters, and because treating attachment to it as something suspicious, outdated or shameful does not make it disappear.


  • Diverse Country(Side)

    Diverse Country(Side)



    REBELLIOUSBARD

    Integration used to mean joining a country.
    When did it start meaning changing it for you?

    Diverse Country(Side) takes aim at what RebelliousBard sees as a profoundly one-sided version of integration: established customs repeatedly altered, renamed or restricted to accommodate people who arrived with cultures and beliefs of their own. From pubs and dogs to Christmas, schools and the countryside itself, the song’s argument is deliberately uncompromising. If living in Britain requires Britain to become less British in order to accommodate you, perhaps Britain was never the country you wanted to live in.

    Diverse Country(Side)



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    FOR THE RECORD

    Welcome to the new British countryside
    Where everything changes… but only in one direction

    They’re making the countryside diverse, y’know
    Planting flags from afar, watching the old ways go
    Dogs on leads? Better ban them quick
    Some folks don’t like them, so we all take the hit
    Pubs with pints and proper laughter in the air
    Now suddenly “problematic”, better not go there
    We twist our traditions, bend them till they snap
    While others keep theirs intact, no compromise, no crap

    One-way integration, the game is crystal clear
    We bend over backwards, year after fucking year

    Oh we change for you, sacrifice it all
    In our own fucking land we take the fall
    You arrive and we roll out the red carpet wide
    Pay the price while we smile and swallow our pride
    Islam won’t fit? That’s what they quietly say
    But it’s us who keep folding every single day
    One-way street, this integration game
    The West keeps bowing… what a pathetic shame

    Countryside hikes now scattered with prayer mats laid
    No more bacon sarnies in the summer shade
    Festivals toned down, the wild cheer restrained
    Culture clash? Best make ourselves fade
    Schools teaching tolerance, but only one direction
    Our own history quietly erased from the lesson
    We fund the new mosques, light up foreign nights
    While village churches slowly lose their lights

    Oh we change for you, sacrifice it all

    Burqas in the village pool, halal in the schools
    While our own traditions get treated like fools
    Holidays muted, no more Christmas cheer
    We give up our ways, year after year
    Time to wake up before it’s too late
    Reclaim what’s ours before it seals our fate

    Oh we change for you, sacrifice it all
    In the land our fathers built we take the fall
    You come as guests but we treat you like kings
    While the old country fades on broken wings
    One-way street, this integration game
    The West keeps bowing… what a fucking shame
    Diverse countryside… what the hell have we done?
    The old ways are dying… under the midday sun

    Diverse countryside
    We change for you
    Every single time
    What have we done?

    WHY THIS SONG EXISTS

    Diverse Country(Side) grew from recurring stories and public arguments about diversity reaching into increasingly ordinary parts of British life, including claims that the countryside itself is insufficiently diverse or inclusive. Around that sit the smaller controversies that accumulated into the song: changing familiar terminology in the name of inclusion, objections to dogs, alcohol and other established customs, and the expectation that British traditions should continually adapt around different religious or cultural sensitivities. RebelliousBard’s position is simple: integration should involve adapting to the country you chose to make your home, not demanding that the country continually dismantle its own customs to accommodate you.


  • The Sacred Cow

    The Sacred Cow



    REBELLIOUSBARD

    A public service should be judged by how well it serves the public.
    Not by how loudly we’re expected to worship it.

    The Sacred Cow attacks Britain’s habit of treating the NHS less like a healthcare system and more like a national religion. RebelliousBard rejects the idea that admiration for hardworking doctors and nurses should make the institution itself immune from criticism. Waiting lists, bureaucracy, political priorities and failing access cannot be answered forever with another appeal to sentiment. The public pays for the NHS, depends upon it when something goes wrong, and has every right to ask whether the system they are repeatedly told to cherish is actually delivering for them.

    The Sacred Cow



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    FOR THE RECORD

    The NHS Church our national religion
    Clap for carers now clap for the silence

    Sunday sermon on the news again says everything is fine
    Monday morning tells a different truth but they call that just design
    Waitlists shrink on paper charts patients vanish from the board
    Empty rooms look very healthy If you never look at wards
    The congregation keeps on clapping for a system out of breath
    Every miracle’s a statistic every delay a quiet death
    The altar’s built on paperwork the scripture’s made of forms
    And every broken promise gets rebranded as the norm

    We’re told it’s free We’re told it’s fair
    We’re told the truth is somewhere
    Floating safely in the air

    NHS Church bow your head Trust the figures not the bed
    NHS Church say amen hope you’re seen by them someday
    Clap for carers clap for pain Clap while nothing really changes
    NHS Church sacred name While the waiting list rearranges
    NHS Church don’t complain Faith is easier than facing it
    NHS Church hold the line while the system eats its own design

    White coats now the holy robes doctors turned to priests
    Policies like sacred texts while pressure never ceases
    Puberty blockers handed out in trials dressed as care
    A new commandment in the system but no one’s allowed to stare

    Foreign workers fill the rota while locals wait in queues
    They call it managed pressure you call it what you choose
    Free at point of use they chant it like scripture through the halls
    But nothing feels that free when the waiting system stalls
    And every question asked too loudly gets labelled out of line
    So silence becomes tradition and compliance feels divine

    Don’t question the cathedral don’t challenge what you see
    Just trust the growing altar of bureaucracy and plea

    NHS Church bow your head trust the figures not the bed
    NHS Church say amen hope you’re seen by them someday
    Clap for carers clap for pain clap while nothing really changes
    NHS Church sacred name while the waiting list rearranges
    NHS Church don’t complain faith is easier than facing it
    NHS Church hold the line while the system eats its own design

    Don’t tell me this is perfect don’t tell me it’s all right
    Don’t tell me every failure is something out of sight
    We see the empty corridors we see the endless wait
    We see decisions made above us then called complicated state
    You can’t call it untouchable and immune from any blame
    When people suffer quietly inside a broken frame

    NHS Church bow your head trust the figures not the bed
    NHS Church say amen how many wait until the end?
    Clap for carers clap for pain clap while everything collapses
    NHS Church sacred name built on promises and ashes
    NHS Church don’t complain truth gets buried in the branding
    NHS Church hold the line while reality stops landing
    NHS Church bow your head but nobody’s being saved
    NHS Church say amen to a system gone mislaid

    The NHS Church bow your head don’t ask questions just wait your turn

    WHY THIS SONG EXISTS

    The Sacred Cow was not prompted by one NHS scandal. It grew from frustration with the status the institution itself has acquired in British political culture: celebrated, defended and sometimes treated as though questioning its performance amounts to attacking the people who work inside it. The song rejects that emotional sleight of hand. Nurses and doctors can work extraordinarily hard inside a system that is still failing, and gratitude towards them does not settle questions about waiting times, bureaucracy, spending or who the system prioritises. For RebelliousBard, the NHS is not a church and criticism is not heresy. It is a publicly funded healthcare system, and it should be judged by what the public receives from it.


  • Two Years For A Tweet

    Two Years For A Tweet



    REBELLIOUSBARD

    More than 12,000 arrests in a year
    for things people said.

    Two Years for a Tweet attacks a justice system RebelliousBard believes has developed an extraordinary sense of priorities. In 2023, 12,183 arrests were recorded by just 37 police forces in England and Wales under two laws governing offensive, threatening and other communications. Against a backdrop of violent crime, sexual offences, burglary and victims waiting for justice, the song asks how policing words on a screen came to demand this much attention. Offensive speech may be ugly, stupid or deliberately provocative. RebelliousBard’s argument is that none of those things should make words a greater priority than people who actually cause physical harm.

    Two Years For A Tweet



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    FOR THE RECORD

    Welcome to Britain, where justice wears two faces,
    One for the words, one for the blood on the pavement

    Murderers walk on bail with a slap on the wrist
    While a dodgy meme gets you on the blacklist
    Grooming gangs slipped through the cracks for years
    But post the wrong joke and you’re drowning in tears

    Soldiers flagged as risks for speaking their mind
    Knife crime exploding best not fall out of line
    The cops scroll your timeline with serious intent
    While the streets run red and the real threats go unbent

    Priorities twisted like a bureaucratic knot
    The wrong kind of truth gets you tied in a knot

    Two years for a tweet, that’s justice today
    While rapists get cautions and slip away
    Say the wrong word and you’re locked in a cell
    But stabbing a stranger? Just “mental health”, mate, all well

    Two years for a tweet, how the system excels
    At crushing the voices while the chaos swells
    Truth is offensive, silence is safe
    Welcome to Britain where justice is fake

    Tag the wrong politician, that’s a hate crime spree
    But burglars get rehab and a cup of tea
    Steal millions and you’ll pay a modest fine
    Mock the sacred narrative? You’re crossing the line
    The courts are a circus, the streets feel unhinged
    But heaven forbid you notice who’s offended

    They lecture us daily on fairness and light
    While the scales of justice tilt out of sight

    Two years for a tweet, that’s justice today

    They jailed a lad for a meme on his screen
    While grooming reports gathered dust, unseen
    A veteran flagged as a danger to kids
    For daring to question what the policy bids
    Priorities, mate… top bloody shelf

    Two years for a tweet, that’s justice divine
    While the worst walk free and we’re losing our mind
    Say you miss old Britain, that’s a dangerous sign
    But real victims waiting in an endless line

    Two years for a tweet the country’s new creed
    Where feelings are sacred and truth makes you bleed
    Welcome to Britain… bought, gagged, and sold
    Two-tier justice… ice cold

    Two years for a tweet… two years for a tweet
    Truth is the crime now… feel the heat

    WHY THIS SONG EXISTS

    Two Years for a Tweet grew from a succession of British cases involving people being arrested, prosecuted or imprisoned for things they posted online, including the imprisonment of Lucy Connolly following a social-media post after the Southport murders. The scale behind those individual stories was equally striking: figures for 2023 recorded 12,183 arrests across 37 police forces in England and Wales under the Communications Act 2003 and Malicious Communications Act 1988. For RebelliousBard, the absurdity lies in a country devoting that level of police attention to words while victims of violent and sexual crime continue to watch offenders receive what they regard as inadequate punishment. The song is the resulting accusation: Britain has become frighteningly good at policing what people say while appearing increasingly incapable of protecting them from what people do.


  • Two Tier Silence

    Two Tier Silence



    REBELLIOUSBARD

    The scandal wasn’t only what was done.
    It was how many people knew enough to look.

    Two-Tier Silence turns its anger towards the institutions that failed girls subjected to organised sexual exploitation across British towns and cities. Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford and the inquiries that followed exposed failures that cannot be dismissed as nobody knowing what was happening. RebelliousBard’s accusation is that protecting reputations, avoiding accusations of racism and preserving the preferred language of community cohesion were allowed to matter more than confronting abuse. The victims paid the price for that cowardice, and no institution involved should be protected from scrutiny simply because the truth is politically uncomfortable.

    Two Tier Silence



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    FOR THE RECORD

    Another report lands softly on the desk
    Another page left blank

    Rotherham, fourteen hundred girls abused and betrayed
    Telford and Rochdale, the same pattern displayed
    Authorities looked away, scared of the label
    Fear of “racism” louder than the screams at the table
    Whole communities protected while the victims were thrown
    Reports buried deep so the narrative stayed sewn

    Data gaps widen where the truth should be clear
    “Community cohesion” the shield they all fear

    Two-tier silence, where the questions go to die
    Free speech frozen when the wrong names apply
    Grooming gangs operating while the system looked away
    Too scared to name it, too scared to say

    Two-tier silence, the uncomfortable truth
    Victims kept waiting in the name of “youth”
    How many more girls before we finally see?
    The cost of the fear and the hypocrisy

    Bradford to Birmingham, the patterns repeat
    Official reports tiptoe on careful feet
    Cousin marriages, parallel rules in the shade
    While they lecture us all on the plans they’ve made
    Elites in their towers signal virtue so loud
    While the girls they abandoned fade into the crowd

    Casey and others laid the failures bare
    But real investigation? Too much to bear

    Two-tier silence, where the questions go to die
    Free speech frozen when the wrong names apply
    Grooming gangs operating while the system looked away
    Too scared to name it… too scared to say
    Two-tier silence… how much more will we take?

    Two-tier silence
    How many more girls
    Before we break the silence

    WHY THIS SONG EXISTS

    Two-Tier Silence was written about the grooming-gang scandal and the institutional failures exposed by investigations into places including Rotherham, Rochdale and Telford. The 2014 Jay Report estimated that approximately 1,400 children had been sexually exploited in Rotherham alone between 1997 and 2013 and documented repeated failures by agencies responsible for protecting them, including concerns among staff about identifying the ethnic background of perpetrators for fear of being considered racist. More recently, the independent Rape Gang Inquiry led by Rupert Lowe argued that the abuse extended across at least 149 local authority districts and estimated the number of victims nationally at a minimum of 250,000, although that figure remains a contested extrapolation rather than a documented victim count. For RebelliousBard, whatever the eventual national number proves to be, this is not only a story about the men who committed the abuse. It is also about the institutions and officials who knew, suspected, minimised, ignored or failed to act while children were being harmed. The song was written because those failures should remain on the record, and because the people responsible for them should face public accountability rather than disappearing quietly into another report.


  • Digital ID (How Quaint!)

    Digital ID (How Quaint!)



    REBELLIOUSBARD

    It starts with protecting the children.
    Funny how often it starts there.

    Digital ID (How Quaint!) looks at the growing enthusiasm for age verification, identity checks and government-backed digital credentials with considerably less enthusiasm. The sales pitch is safety and convenience; the song sees the beginnings of an infrastructure capable of connecting identity, access and permission in ways that extend far beyond keeping children off social media. Presented as another harmless modern improvement, the question is not simply what the system is introduced to do, but what it could eventually be allowed to do.

    Digital ID (How Quaint!)



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    FOR THE RECORD

    They said it’s just for the kids… how innocent, how quaint

    Labour’s coming for the kids on social media
    Banning the platforms except their favourite one, Blue sky
    Can’t have the little darlings hearing the wrong ideas
    But adults? Oh don’t worry, you’ll need to verify

    Upload your face, your passport, your biometric scan
    Just to prove you’re not twelve before you post as a man
    Age verification that’s how it all begins
    The thin end of the wedge sliding under our skin

    They promise it’s harmless, just keeping kids safe
    While the net tightens slowly around the whole place

    Digital ID how quaint the old ways now seem
    Goodbye to your freedom, welcome to the machine
    One login to rule them, one scan to obey
    Your whole bloody life just a click away
    They’ll close your bank when your views don’t align
    Police by desktop — no need for the swine
    Digital ID — the kindest of chains
    Progress they call it… while freedom drains

    Won’t be long till you need it for everything
    Buy your shopping, board a train, or just have a drink
    Wrong opinion online? Account frozen overnight
    Wrong protest last week? Better not switch on the light
    They’ll say it’s for safety, for the greater good
    While they decide what you’re allowed and what’s understood
    One database, one government eye
    Watching every move till the day that you die

    They started with the children, said it was kind
    Now every adult’s got nowhere left to hide

    Digital ID how quaint the old ways now seem

    This isn’t protection, it’s control dressed up nice
    A digital leash on the population’s life
    They’ll police your speech, your spending, your thought
    One wrong move and you’re quietly cut short
    From blocking websites to freezing your wage
    This is how nations are locked in their cage

    Digital ID our glorious cage so neat
    Where every breath is logged and every thought’s on a sheet
    They started with the kids and their favourite safe app
    Now the trap is set for the rest of us, snap
    Digital Britain efficient, compliant, and bleak
    Where freedom’s a relic… and silence is the peak

    Digital ID… how quaint
    How very, very quaint
    Scan complete… good citizen

    WHY THIS SONG EXISTS

    Digital ID (How Quaint!) grew out of proposals to restrict children’s access to social media alongside the wider political push towards digital identity and online age verification. RebelliousBard doesn’t accept the argument that these measures should be considered only in terms of their stated first use. Requiring people to prove who they are before accessing ordinary parts of digital life creates infrastructure that can subsequently be expanded, connected and repurposed. The song takes that possibility to its deliberately sarcastic conclusion: identity becomes permission, convenience becomes dependence, and something introduced in the name of protecting children becomes remarkably useful for keeping track of everybody else.


  • Government of Oops (National Embarrassment Tour)

    Government of Oops (National Embarrassment Tour)



    REBELLIOUSBARD

    Another week. Another announcement.
    Another opportunity to make it worse.

    Government of Oops (National Embarrassment Tour) finds RebelliousBard surveying the Labour government as less a functioning administration than an increasingly elaborate travelling farce. Broken promises, abandoned policies, U-turns, excuses and carefully staged announcements pile up until incompetence itself starts to look like the only consistent policy. This isn’t a song waiting patiently for the government to find its feet. It’s the sound of someone who has already concluded that the people promising to fix Britain have become another part of the problem.

    Government of Oops (National Embarrassment Tour)



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    FOR THE RECORD

    Welcome to the circus… grab a seat
    Another week, another episode

    Another promise broken, another grand plan fails
    Another U-turn announced with the usual sails
    They swear they’re here to lead us, but the punchline’s getting old
    Every bold declaration melts in the daylight cold
    They talk about integrity with perfectly straight faces
    While the country reads the news and laughs in all the wrong places

    They promise revolution with a PowerPoint slide
    But even the bullet points look like they want to hide

    This is the Government of Oops, the National Embarrassment Tour
    Every week another headline hits the floor
    They didn’t win the people they just won by default
    Now they’re stumbling through failure like it’s nobody’s fault
    This is the Cabinet of Chaos, the Ministry of Shrugs
    Where every fresh disaster gets swept under the rugs
    Government of Oops, the never-ending show
    National embarrassment stealing the whole show

    They lecture us daily on fairness and light
    While the scales of justice tilt out of sight
    They blame the previous lot, they blame the weather
    They blame everyone else for holding it together
    Public services crumbling, communities bleed
    Your “change” feels more like a slow retreat

    This is the Government of Oops, the National Embarrassment Tour

    They’ll hold another press conference with nobody in the room
    Just a lonely lectern and the smell of impending doom
    They talk about “trust” with trembling, well-rehearsed grins
    While the nation mutters, “Here we go again.”

    This is the Government of Oops, the National Embarrassment Tour
    Every week another headline hits the floor
    They didn’t win the people they just won by default
    Now they’re stumbling through failure like it’s nobody’s fault
    Government of Oops, the never-ending show
    National embarrassment stealing the whole show

    Government of Oops
    National Embarrassment Tour
    Another week… another show

    WHY THIS SONG EXISTS

    Government of Oops (National Embarrassment Tour) wasn’t prompted by one particular Labour disaster. It came from the accumulation of them. RebelliousBard watched a government elected on promises of change move from announcement to retreat, from policy to U-turn and from one explanation for failure to the next, while insisting that competent government had returned. The song turns that frustration into a running joke: Britain hasn’t simply acquired another disappointing government, but a national embarrassment permanently on tour, unveiling a fresh performance every week and somehow still expecting applause.


  • Please Sir, Can I Have Some More?

    Please Sir, Can I Have Some More?



    REBELLIOUSBARD

    Keep your cap in your hand.
    And remember to be grateful.

    Please Sir, Can I Have Some More? takes Oliver Twist’s empty bowl and drops it into modern Britain. Farmers, pensioners, workers, taxation, immigration and political privilege all feed into the same accusation: the people expected to sustain the country increasingly feel they have to beg their own government for something in return. RebelliousBard turns that resentment into the album’s central image — Britain standing at the table, bowl extended, politely asking whether its own people might finally have some more.

    Please Sir, Can I Have Some More?



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    FOR THE RECORD

    Another day… another bowl of thin gruel
    Please sir… can I have some more?

    We queue up politely like the good little boys
    Asking for scraps from the table of the noise
    They give us the crust while they feast on the roast
    Then tell us to smile and be grateful the most
    We built this country with blood, sweat and pride
    Now we’re begging for crumbs on the losing side

    We say “please sir” with our caps in our hands
    While they laugh in their towers and redraw the lands

    Please sir, can I have some more?
    Just a little respect for the country we bore
    We’re bleeding out slowly, but half don’t care
    They’ll vote for the devil if he combs his hair
    Please sir, can I have some more?
    A nation worth fighting for, not keeping score!

    They tax the farmers, freeze out the old
    Import the chaos, then act shocked when it’s cold
    The media spins it, the suits pat their backs
    While the working man’s left with the empty sacks

    Please sir, can I have some more?

    We’re not asking for much, just a fair bloody go
    A country that works for the people below
    But the table’s for them and the scraps are for us
    The great British promise reduced to dust

    Please sir, can I have some more?
    Just a little respect for the country we bore
    We’re bleeding out slowly, but half don’t care
    They’ll vote for the devil if he combs his hair
    Please sir, can I have some more?
    A nation worth fighting for, not keeping score!

    Please sir… can I have some more?
    Please sir… can I have some more?

    WHY THIS SONG EXISTS

    Please Sir, Can I Have Some More? was built around the famous image from Oliver Twist: a hungry child holding out an empty bowl and daring to ask for another helping. For RebelliousBard, it became a particularly fitting picture of modern Britain — ordinary people paying more, watching public services deteriorate and seeing political priorities move increasingly further from their own lives, yet still being expected to ask politely for consideration. There is no single scandal behind the song because the frustration is cumulative. The empty bowl represents the argument running throughout the album: people who believe they have contributed to their country should not feel like supplicants when they ask their government to put them first.


  • UK Wake Up

    UK Wake Up



    REBELLIOUSBARD

    They told us not to look.
    Eventually, everybody looked.

    UK, Wake Up closes the album by turning all of its arguments into one final demand: pay attention. Immigration, public services, political promises, institutional failure and the growing distance between official explanations and everyday experience have appeared throughout the record. Here they become part of the same question — how long can people be told that everything is manageable when their own experience tells them otherwise? It is angry, but it isn’t a surrender. The song ends where the album ultimately wants to leave the listener: looking, questioning and refusing to accept decline simply because somebody in authority has found a reassuring word for it.

    UK Wake Up



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    FOR THE RECORD

    They told us not to worry, They told us not to stare

    Funny how they always do

    The doctor’s booked until the winter
    The school’s put cabins in the yard
    The council says we’re thriving
    People laugh because it’s hard
    The minister says “manageable”
    The numbers say it’s fine
    Another carefully shaped headline
    Another carefully drawn line
    The papers pick their version
    The pundits choose their side
    The country’s changing by the week
    Yet somehow we’re denied
    We’ve heard the speeches
    We’ve heard the plans
    We’ve heard “full control”
    From half a dozen different men

    UK, wake up How much more can we take?
    UK, wake up Before it’s too late
    The pressure goes up The answers don’t come
    The promises made The damage gets done
    UK, wake up Open your eyes

    UK, wake up See through the lies
    They talk and they talk But nothing gets through
    UK, wake up They’re not listening to you

    One side says it’s numbers
    One side says it’s hate
    One side says it’s necessary
    One side says it’s far too late
    Legal numbers climbing
    Boats still crossing too
    Every year another target
    Every year they miss it through
    A town becomes a postcode
    A village becomes a queue
    Everybody sees the changes
    Nobody agrees what to do
    The minister blames the last one
    The last one blames the next
    And nothing ever moves forward
    It just gets more complex

    Just one more speech
    Just one more fix

    Just one more promise
    Dressed up as something that will stick

    UK, wake up How much more can we take?
    UK, wake up Before it’s too late
    The pressure goes up The answers don’t come
    The promises made The damage gets done

    UK, wake up Open your eyes
    UK, wake up See through the lies
    They talk and they talk But nothing gets through
    UK, wake up They’re not listening to you

    Don’t tell me this is working
    Don’t tell me it’s all fine
    Don’t tell me every question
    Has to fit a party line
    We’re living with the consequences
    We’re paying every day
    While people in expensive suits
    Explain the problem away

    They call it growth They call it progress
    They call it fear They call it change
    Funny how the words keep changing
    While the pressure stays the same

    UK, wake up How much more can we take?
    UK, wake up Before it’s too late
    The pressure goes up The answers don’t come
    The promises made The damage gets done
    UK, wake up Open your eyes

    UK, wake up See through the lies
    They’ve had the power They’ve had the time
    They’ve had the benefit Of every doubt we’ve given
    UK, wake up How much more can we take?
    UK, wake up Before it’s too late

    UK, wake up

    UK, wake up

    They told us not to worry
    They told us not to stare
    Funny

    Now everybody’s looking

    WHY THIS SONG EXISTS

    UK, Wake Up was written as the closing statement of Please Sir, Can I Have Some More?. Unlike several songs on the album, it was not triggered by one incident. It comes from the accumulation of them: rising pressure on services, immigration, missed political promises and the repeated insistence that concerns visible in everyday life are exaggerated, misunderstood or somehow illegitimate. The title is deliberately simple. After an album spent arguing about what has gone wrong, the final song asks for something more useful than another promise — for people to look at the country around them, make up their own minds and care enough about its future to demand better.


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