Bread and Circuses

It's time to celebrate, to come out and play

We've been counting down the days, this weekend we've got a bank holiday!

We're as sick with expectation as we are with what we're escaping

Lock up the house, load up the car

We've twenty-four hours to spend in a goddamn theme park

We are so grateful for our new state-funded stately pleasure dome

We just commute from one end of the conveyor belt to the other

Shock and awe and an over-priced gift-shop

You didn't have fun if you didn't buy the t-shirt

Paying through the nose so you can prick-tease your animal instincts

Art starts to imitate life in the factory

The factory's a prison, so art is seen to atrophy

All our days off in front of the TV instead of a stock screen

We just commute from one end of the conveyor belt to the other

Oh, the kids who would've led the unions in the past now grow up staying silent in darkened cinemas

If every hour that I have spent stuck in a circus was spent learning a language

I'd have so much more to say

And if every penny that I have spent on processed bread was spent on growing my own food

My skin wouldn't look so grey

Work and rest and play safe in the knowledge that this is the only way

The hand that feeds chooses the menu, but I'm a fussy eater

Work rest and decay

One commodity a day will keep subversive daydreams away