Sandinista!

So you're on the floor, at 54
Think you can last - at the palace
Does your body go to the to and fro?
But tonight's the night - or didn't you know
That ivan meets g.i. joe

He tried his tricks- that ruskie bear
The united nations said it's all fair
He did the radiation - the chemical plague
But he could not win - with a cossack spin

The vostok bomb - the stalin strike
He tried every move - he tried to hitch hike
He drilled a hole - like a russian star
He made every move in his repertoire

When ivan meet g.i. joe

Now it was g.i. joe's turn to blow
He turned it on - cool and slow
He tried a payphone call to the pentagon
A radar scan - a leviathan

He wiped the earth - clean as a plate
What does it take to make a ruskie break?
But the crowd are bored and off they go
Over the road to watch china blow!

When ivan meets g.i. joe

They cried the tears, they shed the fears,
Up and down the land,
They stole guitars or used guitars
- so the tape would understand,
Without even the slightest hope of a 1000 sales
Just as if, as if there was, a hitsville in u.k.,
I know the boy was all alone, til the hitsville hit u.k.

They say true talent will allways emerge in time,
When lightening hits small wonder -
Its fast rough factory trade,
No expense accounts, or lunch discounts
Or hypeing up the charts,
The band went in, 'n knocked 'em dead, in 2 min. 59

- no slimy deals, with smarmy eels - in hitsville u.k.
Lets shake'n say, we'll operate - in hitsville u.k.
The mutants, creeps and musclemen,
Are shaking like a leaf,
It blows a hole in the radio,
When it hasnt sounded good all week,
A mike'n boom, in your living room - in hitsville u.k.
No consumer trials, or a.o.r., in hitsville u.k.,
Now the boys and girls are not alone,
Now the hitsville's hit u.k.

(the clash)

"it ain't my fault
It's 6 'o'clock in the morning"
He said
As he came up out of the night

When he found i had no coins to bum,
He began to testify
Born in a depression
Born out of good luck
Born into misery
- in the back of a truck..

I'm telling you this mister
Don't be put off by looks
I been in the ring and i took those right hooks

Oh the loneliness
Used to knock me out - harder than the rest

And i've worked for breakfast
'n i ain't had no lunch
I been on delivery and received every punch

Suddenly i noticed that it weren't quite the same
Feel different one morning maybe it was the rain

But everywhere i looked all over the city
They're runnin' in an out of the bars
Someone stopped for a pick-up driving one of those cars
Y'see i allways wanted one of those cars
Long black 'n shiny an' pull up to the bars
Honk your horn, put down your windows, push yer button,
Hear it coming in
You can say i can see the light... roll!
Forward! drive! green lights! green lights!
Intersection city coming a running comeback home i run back
Not that strong now
Yes who's there now, can i help you? calling intel station light

Did you put your money in? yes i put it in
It say go, i say go, she say go, so we say go
Cos i can see the light all night tonight this night right now
Coming on forward motion across the ocean
An' up the hills yeh boys let's strike for the hills
While that petrol tank is full
Gimme a push gimme a pull
Gimme a llama gimme a mule
Gimme a donkey or gimme a horse

Down the avenue
So fine
In style

I wasn't going that far
The junkie slip!
I said i wasn't doin' it
The junkie slip!
Yea thought i'd find a rhythm in the junkie town
Thought i'd find a rhythm when the junkies hang around

Thought i'd go out walking to the junkie kind of beat
Setting on those bars that the junkies meet
The junkie slip!
Nail it down
The junkie slip!
This side of town
The junkie slip!
And whatcha knowing before you's a doin
The things they's a-knowing
You pawn your coat and your car
Pawned your cigar and your old guitar
You pawned your guitar and your saxaphone
You're pawning everything in your mother's home

Cos it's a junkie slip!
Just like rock n' roll
A junkie slip!
Like johnnny did the stroll
And you know it feels alright
But what's that feeling on a saturday night?

You're itching itching itching in your pillow in the day
You're itching itching itching and you gave your coat away
Itching itching itching and then in your sleeping bag
There's a little packet that youthought you never had

It's a junkie slip!
Every night
Junkie slip!
Cold water fright
It's a junkie slip
And an old spoon cooky cooky cooky kooky afternoon
All afternoon and in the middle of the night

You're worse for the difference and it don't sleep tight
Don't pull the curtains fon't put on the light
C-c-c-cos it's a junkie slip!
What's goin' on?
Was early night
I lit the fire
Finish alright
Yeh edi-edi-edi-yeh edi-juan
Him going to live with indian
Come in the car, it's an old machine
Riding from brookway on a magazine
Be on that corner with a magazine

Do ya do ya do ya follow your friends?
Do i hear you saying that you're going back again?
It's a junkie slip!
Where? did it end?
But did it ah did it did it ever end?
When did it ever end?
Don't ask me when on a wednesday night
Don't ask me when on a thrusday night
I said oh? who the hell are you?
You said oh! well you met me
I said i can guess why

(the clash/dread)

*left channel*
Make sure!
Taking cover in the bunker tonight
Waiting for bo diddley's headlights
I feel alright
Gotta fender stratosphere
I can do anything tonight
It's in neon lights an' global rights
Frank? he's on the phone
There ain't no german girl outside
But who cares when its warm inside?
With music
Special mystery of music tragically
Exchanging slaves for majesties
Modern waves of tragedy
Packing a to pience colt pair of shoots
A shiny grey mexican suit
The blue eyed traffic can sashay by
'cos tonight the sailor boys have hit shanghai
The kick-out traffic goes creaking by
I smash my glass and shout shanghi
My drummer friend comes shooting by
He said errol flynn will never die
Oh no! who am i to question why?
And are you lonesome tonight
And do ya need a country cowboy
Who's just thin and tight in those
Brrrr bus depot jeans
With a squirt resistant stud stud
Hey stoner

Get over there in the spliffbunker one
Becos london bridge was sold somehow
But it was too old anyhow
When uncle sam has broken down
We'll make him down in old japan
Say yeee

Well there ain't no better blend
Than joe ely and his texas men
Where the wind blows
I ain't seen none like that scenery
You can see from a bus if you pay the price

Wave my arms around
Flag one of those taxi's maybe
I saw a girl somewhere somehow
Forever sticks in my mind somehow
I've just got three lines
And a pair of two's
Like a lucky roll of dice that you
You cast

*right channel*
If music could talk!
Which means
Whatever your mind can bring
Likethe apple fell off the tree
Pah! fell right on his head
Yeah many years ago

There was a man who said
I am a shaman
A voodoo shaman
Got in trouble so he's going out
Mixing up and haiti! oh!
And the crickets
Buddy holly said it was
Brrr brrr yiii!

If music could talk you know

I feel kinda lonely
Standing out on the floor
Of electric ladyland...
Cos this is a good question samson
Are you partly arabic?

Chi man! whatcho all about

I don't want to i can't hope to
Say it all in one go
Occasionally once or twice
A day i feel alive enough to say
Let's hear what the drummerman's
Got to say about
He said is it errol flynn's birthday or not?
Sept 12 until october
If they pack 2 piece
Colt pair of shoots
We got the shiny grey mexican suits
I'm just wasting a great big
Corporation and the entire fund
The girders of wall street
And thetemples of money
And the high priests
Of the expense account
And im wasting the whole thing
I come down in yamaha-ha
They make the best pianos-time to step-up

Have you ever asked yourself
Who holds the key that winds up big ben?

Right channel: silicone on sapphire
Left channel: connection
R: my prerogative is zero
L: when is your start
L: what is your data
R: databus
L: databus
R: i'm pushing your breakpoints
L: [anytime mike](?)
R: know my subroutine
L: motorola exor(?)sizer
R: modem connecting
L: in sync
R: buffer
R: handshaking
L: throughput
R: mnemonic code
L: i have your sentences right
L: go ahead
R: macro command
L: yes
R: this is my micro instruction
L: improper request
L: output failed
R: request debug
L: improper request
R: request debug
L: system debug freeze
R: your memory is volatile
L: freeze
R: log(?), add this is my address bus
L: log add
R: kill
L: kill
R: (?)
L: (?)
R: rub out
L: you're on system interconnect
L: you are typing into my memory
L: shift, shift, shift
R: that's better
R: now my decoder
R: i request your zero variable storage
L: i am a texas instrument
R: clear, overrun
L: my zero positive
R: truth table
L: connection
R: give me your input
L: vector interrupt
R: erase function
L: vector interrupt
R: go to ram, go to ram
L: go yourself
R: go to ram
L: i [take it back](?)
R: your memory is volitile
R: your inputs, are deprived
L: save, save
R: erase [bridge](?)
R: go to outputs
L: large scale integration
R: no source statements
L: give me, give me flowchart
R: all [died on call](?) databus
L: hardware, firmware
L: inhibit, inhibit, overflow
R: yes. hardwired logic. machine language
L: connection deprived by request, request
L: parallel operation
L: give me push count stack
L: i must have your address first
L: take your datalog recharge
L: hello, hello
R: system debug freeze
R: clear restore and exit
R: exit all done

(the clash)

It's up to you not to heed the call-up
'n' you must not act the way you were brought up
Who knows the reasons why you have grown up?
Who knows the plans or why they were drawn up?

It's up to you not to heed the call-up
I don't wanna die!
It's up to you not to hear the call-up
I don't wanna kill!

For he who will die
Is he who will kill

Maybe i wanna see the wheatfields
Over kiev and down to the sea

All the young people down the ages
They gladly marched off to die
Proud city fathers used to watch them
Tears in their eyes

There is a rose that i want to live for
Although, god knows, i may not have met her
There is a dance an' i should be with her
There is a town - unlike any other

It's up to you not to hear the call-up
'n' you must not act the way you were brought up
Who give you work an' why should you do it?
At fifty five minutes past eleven
There is a rose...
Yeah!

Stop wastin' time
Right

One more breath

One more time in the ghetto
One more time if you please
One

One more time for the dying man
One more time if you please now

One more time

(instrumental)

Atom secrets, secret leaflet
Have the boys found the leak yet?
The molehill sets the wheel in motion
His downfall picks up locomotion

The people must have something good to read on a sunday

The leader's wife takes a government car
In the dark to meet her minister
But the leader never leaves his door ajar
As he swings his whip from the boer war

He wore a leather mask for his dinner guests
Totally nude and with deep respect
Proposed a toast to the votes he gets
The feeling of power and the thought of sex!

Now the girl let the fat man touch her
Vodka fumes and the feel of a vulture
The driver waited in the embassy car
The fat man's trap was set for capture
So the girl let the thin man touch her
Mixing questions, drunken laughter
The ministry car was waiting there
A minister knows his own affair

The people must have something good to read on a sunday

Ring! ring! it's 7:00 a.m.!
Move y'self to go again
Cold water in the face
Brings you back to this awful place
Knuckle merchants and you bankers, too
Must get up an' learn those rules
Weather man and the crazy chief
One says sun and one says sleet
A.m., the f.m. the p.m. too
Churning out that boogaloo
Gets you up and gets you out
But how long can you keep it up?
Gimme honda, gimme sony
So cheap and real phony
Hong kong dollars and indian cents
English pounds and eskimo pence

You lot! what?
Don't stop! give it all you got!
You lot! what?
Don't stop! yeah!

Working for a rise, better my station
Take my baby to sophistication
She's seen the ads, she thinks it's nice
Better work hard - i seen the price
Never mind that it's time for the bus
We got to work - an' you're one of us
Clocks go slow in a place of work
Minutes drag and the hours jerk

"when can i tell 'em wot i do?
In a second, maaan...oright chuck!"

Wave bub-bub-bub-bye to the boss
It's our profit, it's his loss
But anyway lunch bells ring
Take one hour and do your thanng!
Cheeesboiger!

What do we have for entertainment?
Cops kickin' gypsies on the pavement
Now the news - snap to attention!
The lunar landing of the dentist convention
Italian mobster shoots a lobster
Seafood restaurant gets out of hand
A car in the fridge
Or a fridge in the car?
Like cowboys do - in t.v. land

You lot! what? don't stop. huh?

So get back to work an' sweat some more
The sun will sink an' we'll get out the door
It's no good for man to work in cages
Hits the town, he drinks his wages
You're frettin', you're sweatin'
But did you notice you ain't gettin'?
Don't you ever stop long enough to start?
To take your car outta that gear
Don't you ever stop long enough to start?
To get your car outta that gear
Karlo marx and fredrich engels
Came to the checkout at the 7-11
Marx was skint - but he had sense
Engels lent him the necessary pence

What have we got? yeh-o, magnificence!!

Luther king and mahatma gandhi
Went to the park to check on the game
But they was murdered by the other team
Who went on to win 50-nil
You can be true, you can be false
You be given the same reward
Socrates and milhous nixon
Both went the same way - through the kitchen
Plato the greek or rin tin tin
Who's more famous to the billion millions?
News flash: vacuum cleaner sucks up budgie
Oooohh...bub-bye

Magnificence!!

Fucking long, innit?

No! gangboss no!
We don't want the whip!

As you get weaker - it will get harder
So don't be like him
Keep your bones of effort and strngth
Don't sell them to him

We don't want no gangboss
We want to equalize
To my fathers fathers fathers father
Work was no joy
When his son had grown of age
You got to work now boy
Never ceasing for many years
Want to follow that boy?

Till half and half is equalized
Put down the tools
See the car see the house
See the fabulous jewels
See the world you have built it with shoulders of iron
See the world but it is not yours say the stealers of zion

Geneva
Wall street
Who makes them so fat?
Well well me an' you better think about that
In overdrive whooo

Till humanize is equalize
Put down the tools
Every face on every side
Throw down the tools
Stay at home
Don't check with rome paint strike on the door
It's one to one the fight is on so don't go to war

We don't need no gangboss
We have to equalize

Oh! mama, mama look there!
Your children are playing in that street again
Don't you know what happened down there?
A youth of fourteen got shot down there
The kokane guns of jamdown town
The killing clowns, the blood money men
Are shooting those washington bullets again

As every cell in chile will tell
The cries of the tortured men
Remember allende, and the days before,
Before the army came
Please remember victor jara,
In the santiago stadium,
Es verdad - those washington bullets again

And in the bay of pigs in 1961,
Havana fought the playboy in the cuban sun,
For castro is a colour,
Is a redder than red,
Those washington bullets want castro dead
For castro is the colour...
...that will earn you a spray of lead

For the very first time ever,
When they had a revolution in nicaragua,
There was no interference from america
Human rights in america

Well the people fought the leader,
And up he flew...
With no washington bullets what else could he do?

'n' if you can find a afghan rebel
That the moscow bullets missed
Ask him what he thinks of voting communist...
...ask the dalai lama in the hills of tibet,
How many monks did the chinese get?
In a war-torn swamp stop any mercenary,
'n' check the british bullets in his armoury
Que?
Sandinista!

Start the car lets make a midnight run
Across the river to south london
To dance to the latest hi-fi sound
Of bass, guitar and drum
Seeking out a rhythm that can take the pressure off
Stepping in and out of that crooked crooked beat

Take a piece of cloth, a coin for thirst
For the sweat will start to run
With a cymbal splash, a word of truth
And a rocking bass and drum
Seeking out a rhythm that can take the pressure on
Stepping in and out of that crooked crooked beat

So one by one they come on down
From the tower blocks of my home town
Stepping with the rhythm of the rockers beat
Drowning out the pressure of the crooked beat
Seeking out a rhythm that can take the tension on
Stepping in and out of that crooked crooked beat

It has crooked past this crooked street
Where cars patrol this crooked beat
Badges flsh and sirens wail
They'll be taking one and all to jail

Prance! prance! you want a law to dance?

(strummer/jones)

The offered me the office, offered me the
Shop
They said i'd better take anything they'd got
Do you wanna make tea at the bbc?
Do you wanna be, do you really wanna be a cop?

Career opportunities are the ones that never knock
Every job they offer you is to keep you out the dock
Career opportunity, the ones that never knock

I hate the army an' i hate the r.a.f.
I don't wanna go fighting in the tropical heat
I hate the civil service rules
And i won't open letter bombs for you

Bus driver....ambulance man....ticket inspector

They're gonna have to introduce conscription
They're gonna have to take away my prescription
If they wanna get me making toys
If they wanna get me, well, i got no choice

Careers
Careers
Careers

Ain't never gonna knock

Down the road came a junco partner
For he was loaded as can be
He was knocked out, knocked out loaded
He was a'wobblin' all over the street

Singing six
Six

Well i wish i would have me a great deal of money
Yeah and a-mighty

Give me
Down
Junco partner

Well i'm down

Now lightning strikes in old
New york
It may be dark but i wanna talk
It might rain, it might snow
Too many things i got to know
If this is spring than it's time to sing
Never mind the l'il birdies wing
Look out, look out, old new york
New york's coming an' new york talks
Hey! strike! not once...
Strike! but twice!

Get out your money - peel a slab
Roll some notes an' hail a cab
Drive in church drive in back
Drive down seventh in a tank
Take in the sights, feel the breeze
See new york's one and only tree
It can be found in garbage park
But don't inspect it after dark
Strike! new york! lightning!
Not once but twice.

Accidental hike in the transit strike
Roller skate or ride a bike
Three to a car, brooklyn bridge
You won't get far if you're privileged
Graffiti jack sprays in black
An englishman can he read it back?
Deli joe he ought to know
He runs the gang on pastrami row
Strike! lightning strike!

Because glass to glass, street to street
Buildings touch st. peter's feet
From car to bar, prez to shah
Everything is in the jar
The 4 winds blow cos the 4 winds know
Takes a special hustle to make a roll
Honey girl on her feet
I wish everything to make her sweet
Strike! twice! ok so roll!
From harlem! strike one!

Harlem slum to penthouse block
On every door i already knocked
There wasn't anybody that i didn't leave alone
Somebody lying under every stone
Everything that a man could need
In a bag down by my knee
That looks good, this ain't got seeds
Cheaper than booze down in the bowery
Lightning strike! old new york!
Everything's light! strike!

Hey ho such a night
I'll see y'all when the lightning strike
A polaroid caught in the act
You're married too and that's a fact
But i won't peek and i won't squeek
Down by the trucks on christopher street
It's cuban day - oi vey
Chinese new year let's call it a day
Tootsie! hey chi man!
That melody is puerto rican
Hey chi man is what he's speaking
An' there's the road down into london town
Where many cars get broken down
It's the westway from ladbroke grove
Runs down to old hounslow
Just thought i'd mention the new extention
That run's down the 59th street intersection
Did you hear the news y'all?
London town on the broadway!

They say immigrants steal the hubcaps
Of the respected gentlemen
They say it would be wine an' roses
If england were for englishmen again

Well i saw a dirty overcoat
At the foot of the pillar of the road
Propped inside was an old man
Whom time would not erode
When the night was snapped by sirens
Those blue lights circled fast
The dancehall called for an' ambulance
The bars all closed up fast

My silence gazing at the ceiling
While roaming the single room
I thought the old man could help me
If he could explain the gloom
You really think it's all new
You really think about it too
The old man scoffed as he spoke to me
I'll tell you a thing or two

I missed the fourteen-eighteen war
But not the sorrow afterwards
With my father dead and my mother ran off
My brothers took the pay of hoods
The twenties turned the north was dead
The hunger strike came marching south
At the garden party not a word was said
The ladies lifted cake to their mouths

The next war began and my ship sailed
With battle orders writ in bed
In five long years of bullets and shells
We left tem million dead
The few returned to old piccadily
We limped around leicster square
The world was busy rebuilding itself
The architects could not care

But how could we know when i was young
All the canges that were to come?
All the photos in the wallets on the battlefield
And now the terror of the scientific sun
There was masters an' servants an' servants an' dogs
They taught you how to touch your cap
But through strikes an' famine an' war an' peace
England never closed this gap

So leave me now the moon is up
But remember all the tales i tell
The memories that you have dredged up
Are on letters forwarded from hell

The streets were by now deserted
The gangs had trudged off home
The lights clicked off in the bedsits
An' old england was all alone