Innocent Money

At night he sleeps on
garbage heap streets
On the mattress he keeps
strapped to his back
Of sleeping bag and rags
In a five-star shop doorway
or underpass home
Canal wind cutting deep through his bones
And a wrap of smack
and the mattress on his back
Are all that he owns
And nobody visits
and nobody cares

INNOCENT MONEY!
Weighing our worth in it
INNOCENT MONEY
Surrender our lives to it
INNOCENT MONEY
There's never enough of it
INNOCENT MONEY
Swimming in sewers for it
Innocent Money
Innocent Money
Innocent Money
Innocent Money

His cold dead stare and
filthy grease matted hair
Makes the civilians scared
as they walk on by
With their pious eyes glued to the floor
And they've got no clue
that he didn't choose
His pavement blues
And the world keeps turning
just a little more
And all he can hope for is
some money to score
Some money to score

INNOCENT MONEY
We place all our trust in it
INNOCENT MONEY
We pray to our gods for it
INNOCENT MONEY
Is the King of the World
INNOCENT MONEY
It's the Devil himself

From Buckingham Palace
to sink estate slums
Imperial nostalgia
the eagle has flown
Britannia's resigned to managed decline
The fox guards the chickens
the chickens don't mind
The system is rigged
like a Vegas casino
We're most of us born
with a busted flush
Marx's pipe dream of
a classless society
Is further away than
the mountains of Mars

INNOCENT MONEY
A lifetime of work
INNOCENT MONEY
With nothing to show for it
INNOCENT MONEY
'Cept a face full of worry
INNOCENT MONEY
And a fist-full of air

The bourgeois bastards
just keep stealing
And selling the dreaming
of the lie-lie-lies
That undermine our lives
The slugs at the bottom
Feed the wolves at the top
Growth spreads upwards ever only
There's no 'trickle down – trickle down'
'trickle down – trickle down'
Our souls are worth more
than the warmth of the sun
They've tricked us to believe
that our work is never done
Cognitive dissonance
Proud of your ignorance
Subjects not citizens
Never read a book
Too scared to take a look
Too scared to take a look

Market theology
Makes a lie of 'Democracy'
We'd swim in a sewer for it
Drowning in debt for it
Market realities
Closed down the factories
A rope made of gold
To hang ourselves on