I've been on a big Tears for Fears kick of late and, today, sitting down on the bus, I remembered the words of Tears of Fears' massive hit of 1989, "Sowing the Seeds of Love." At the end of the bridge, Roland Orzabal throws in the line "Kick out the Style, Bring back the Jam!" This is a reference to Paul Weller and his second band, The Style Council, and the migration to that from his former band, The Jam.
The Jam was exceedingly popular in punk circles as radically political and revolutionary with a very open socialist message. Weller moved on to forming The Style Council which was something of a jazzy, pop, lounge act that danced between songs about relationships and politics in the early days to much more lounge pop romance although the lyrics still hit on solid political topics from time to time.
Riding back on the bus today I popped on the headphones and turned on The Style Council on the iPod. I pulled up "Walls Come Tumbling Down."
Excerpts from "Walls Come Tumbling Down:"
You don't have to take this crap
You don't have to sit back and relax
You can actually try changing it
I know we've always been taught to rely
Upon those in authority -
But you never know until you try
How things just might be -
If we came together so strongly
...
Governments crack and systems fall
'cause Unity is powerful -
Lights go out - walls come tumbling down!
...
Are you gonna realize
The class war's real and not mythologized
And like Jericho - You see walls can come tumbling down!
Then, I started writing down some of my own words...
"Perhaps I'm late for this
But I'm on my feet
Too long ether screaming
Fists pounding
In solitude
A leader in a quiet perch
Without a movement
Tremulous buzz gathering
Arising!
Falling back
Appoints a few proxies
Knowing what he wants
They're pulled to golden void
Abandon perch!
Wait no more!"
And, then I had to get off and go home. So, now after dinner with a 3.5 year old who wants to run around with me, here I am.
So, I'll leave it here, with the words of a much better writer than I can dream to be...
...
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
...