Mind You Don't Think

It Seems Like a Good Thing To Do

Tell me why did you buy a 'BMX' bike ?
You never go riding on a motocross track
There are faster and cheaper ones I'm sure that you'd like
In a short time from now you'll be taking it back

I don't know, don't ask me, how should I know ?
It just seems like a good thing to do
It just seems like a good thing to do
Ask my friends, they've all got them too
It's a trend that we follow, and it's new
And it seems like a good thing to do.

Tell me why do you wear those 'Two-Tone' clothes
It's not new, from the sixties, a complete rehash
You will throw them away when the fashion goes
So why do you squander all your hard-earned cash?

What did you spend on those 'Star-Wars' toys ?
In a few years times they'll be obsolete
A financial attack on the nation's boys
But why do think that it's a special treat ?

Independence

From my birth I've been told the way to behave
Not a free agent, but not a slave
I relied on my parents for friendly advice
I was fully content and I paid the price
But there came a time when for everyone's sakes
I had to break away, make my own mistakes
It's not terribly easy to decide what to do
So much easier copying the people I knew

I never want to live my life like that
Taking thoughts and opinions from environment
And I'd like to think that every thought I think
Is a part of me and not some precedent.

From my coming of age I've been thinking you see
About the sort of person I'd like to be
I whatever I think is the best way to go
I won't imitate blindly the people I know
Though I'll take in account the way that they act
I'll never take their opinions as matter of fact
If I stick to this practice I might get it right
Independence will come with freedom in sight.

The pressures on people are very severe
Subtly forming a part of their mind
Deep-rooted desire to be just like the rest
Not a passive desire, they try their very best
So it's difficult walking a path on your own
Lots of people contrive to leave you alone
Maybe the price is too high to pay
Independence can leave you in disarray.

Television

Hey let's play 'Cowboys and Indians'
You can be cowboys and we'll be the other side
We'll have to shoot it out, like they do every day
If you get killed you must act like a homicide
But that's too boring for the boys who are lying dead
Make a new rule so that no-one gets left behind
Dead on the floor, one touch and I come to life
Try to remember that death can't be trivialised.

Television's what we watch every night
Marvellous mixture of music and light
A wonderful weapon to use on the young
Think peace is boring and wartime is fun.

Face a surprise attack, launched from another world
Get word to 'G-Force', they'll save us from destruction
Murder the aliens, zap them with laser beams
Bring down in flames all their horrible contraptions
Nobody cares about the thousands they put to death
It doesn't matter 'cos they come from the 'Spectra' world
Smile with delight as the millions of space-ships crash
Victory's ours, is this our finest hour ?

They have to get away, escape from the fortress walls
Only a few of them and so many German guards
They've got machine guns and they use them to great effect
Fill all the Germans with their death bringing lumps of lead
Perhaps it was necessary, war must have victory
Maybe the outcome was the best one for everyone
Why do we revel in killing and death and blood ?
Teach little boys that the best thing's to fire a gun ?

The Rest of Us

We all walk the same and we talk the same and we wear the same clothes
We all think the same and we vote the same, why it is nobody knows
When we're watching television, we all watch the same shows
When we're reading problem pages we all have the same woes
But it's people like you that get right up our nose!

HEY YOU! You're not like the rest of us,
None of us like people when they try to make their own mind up
Get in line, stay in line, after all we're right
But we're not taking chances, so you're looking for a fight
Get in line, stay in line, the pressure is on you
Never mind who's right or wrong, suppress non-trendy few.

We all think too much about our social face, and what others think of us
And we want to know what other people say when their chatting on the bus
If we all agree a standard and a uniform to wear
Then nobody in our circle will come under people's stare
But there's always a few idiots who spoil it when they dare.

We humiliate those who don't fit in with our trendy fashion set
'Cos it does a lot for insecurity, which is something we all get
And we spend a lot of money so we don't get left behind
'Cos we like the anonymity that this will help us find
And it doesn't really matter if it fossilised our minds.

Contentment

There are people who have their whole life planned
Follow routines with their heads in sand
And they're not concerned about meaning, about end
And they stick to their guns with indifference to defend
And their life goes on, like a clockwork toy
Try to use their wealth as a cheap decoy
But it can't last for ever, this dodging undefined
Face the ultimate question and go for peace of mind

I've found contentment deep in myself
Not through some God and not through love of wealth
I greet each day, I feel OK deep in myself

Other people say, "God is all you need -
To explain our lives, just have faith in creed
And our purpose in life is to love divinity,
If you do what you're told you will live eternally"
But we don't need God to explain the world
And the Universe is beginning to unfurl
Still the people like the cling on tightly to their lie
Tell each other and us that nobody has to die

People find it hard to accept new thought
If it over-rules all that they've been taught
Like that humans evolved from some protein in the sea
Or that space-time has no beginning definitely
What they just can't take is that we're not part
Of some well planned scheme with some well planned start
And they just can't accept that we came about by chance
So they skate round the subject or fall into a trance.

Jubilant Fantasy

Instrumental

Alternative Consciousness Entertainment (2034)

People:
It's 2034, only one in twelve of us are still in work,
The nation's greatest bill is for leisure centres, movies, games and sport
The leaders cannot think of a new idea to keep us off the street
So pissed off with all this that we riot and cause havoc every week

Leaders:
Please tell us what to give them, we need something right away
To satisfy the people, or this may be our last day.

Science:
Neurologists have triumphed they've invented A. C. E.
It's a portable computer that can change what people see
It can simulate a consciousness controlled by World T.V.
What they feel and see and hear and smell is total fantasy
While their brains are busy being fed with all these dreams
The signals from their senses can be fed to our machines
Their bodies will be robots that will work for just one meal
They won't be conscious of it so it's OK to reveal

Salesmen:
The people all want to have one so we struggle to meet demand
It doesn't appear to matter that their bodies are ours to command
The demo-machines are constantly in use so we've had to say
A limit of fifteen minutes for the customers who don't pay
Nobody guessed how quickly all our stock of them would be sold
So many types of people and from 90 to nine-months old
We've made so much profit from the sales we're practically millionaires
I'm joining the system too next week, 'cos nothing on Earth compares.

People:
Just look what's happened now, over ninety-five percent on A. C. E.
We've got stability, but the apathy has caused us to stagnate
The zombies go to work, while the people just exist inside their skulls
Science is appaled and the leaders have no people left to rule

Epilogue:
The Leaders can't be blamed because they had no other options
The People can't be blamed they just want something to distract them
The Salesmen can't be blamed they have to sell what people want
And Science can't be blamed because they mustn't obstruct progress, trendy progress.

Teacher's Pet

Martin's always had an interest in science and in art
He's always asking questions, he has been from the start
His mother tried to teach him before he went to school
But now the teachers tell her he's nothing but a fool
He doesn't learn his 8 times table, doesn't even try
He won't do comprehension, he just gazes at the sky
His spelling is atrocious and his writing can't be read
He spends his time annoying us, who knows what's in his head ?

Learn what teachers tell you not what you might like to know
Don't waste their time with questions that will make the whole class slow
Patience was exhausted trying to make you fit the mould
The teachers had no concept of how much your mind could hold.

Now Mandy is a good girl, not wonderfully bright
She learns what people teach her, she always gets it right
But when it comes to problems she's never met before
She'll stick at them for hours, her grade is very poor
She always does what she's been told, she always wants to please
And though her type will seldom get diplomas or degrees
The teachers say she's charming and she learns her parts of speech
They'd rather have her any day than Martin Smith to teach

Now twenty years have passed us, the kids have all left school
Their thinking's not restricted to education's rule
Mandy is a bank clerk, she's happy in her work
Martin's theory changed how we think about the Earth
Mandy might have got as far as Martin reached, it's true
But Mandy's parents always said "That's not what girls should do"
I hope that parents nowadays give their young girls a choice
A slightly different outlook needs a slightly different voice

The Wake

I've come to a point, I can't turn back, I can't even stay right here
I finally found what's right for me, sustained just over a year
For ages it seemed the good in life was tainted with rainstorm clouds
My attitudes changed so what seemed dire seems triviality now
May be the change was just because I'd come through some difficult days
The people I mix with constantly have passed insecurity phase

My life will change so much when everything I know will be gone
All this will melt away, like the fade-out at the end of this song
A lot of what I've left behind, I'll remember as long as I live
It gave me self-confidence, that's a wondrous thing to give

At Haywards Heath College life was good, we got on with people well
And people that didn't like us looked away without making life hell
Whatever your interest was you'd find they'd give you the same respect
They wouldn't say things behind your back, they'd tell it to you direct
Some of us used this freedom to put forward our different ideas
We knew it was time well spent because they fell on recipient ears

A card with a piece of string attached, the start of a lost debate
A test-tube of boiling water shot at me and one of my mates
A stupid conclusion someone drew, discredited on the train
A new resolution - don't be forced to say "Here we go again"
I'll try to remember all these things that lie in the calm of the wake
I'll look to the future with new hopes, I won't make that wretched mistake.