the title track - again

[vostoklake]

I already wrote a song called "Small Group Psychosis". It was pretty explicitly about the machinations that go on in small far-left sects. Then I realised that 90% of my audience don't give a shit about that crap. So I've started from scratch, and hopefully written something with more universal applicability.



She awoke from shattered memories still yawning
In the garden, something running wild
It was five o'clock on Christmas morning
She was aware that she was still a child
She went downstairs and went to her confessional
Where someone wants to know her name, at least
She's learning now, she's going to impress them all
She's come to be a spectre at the feast

It's easy to pretend that it's pretending
That they're not people on the other side
The games she plays with friending and defriending
The times she bullied and the times she lied
There's always someone wants to join a stoning
There's always someone champing at the bit
To force a foe to spend their lives atoning
She keeps them in the dark, and feeds them shit.

I never agreed to this
I never agreed to any of this
I never agreed to be part of your
Small Group Psychosis
I have no more need for this
I never believed in any of this
I beg and I plead to get out of your
Small Group Psychosis

So long ago, he had a golden vision
He fought it hard and disregarded cost
He faced down persecution and derision
He stood against the darkness and he lost
So now he lies in jaded bitter memories
He's circling the wagons of his friends
If they can't save the world, they'll save him plenty
He's trapped them in a loop that never ends

They shout the mindless slogans that he tells them
In language no-one outside understands
Their leader knows that they will swallow anything
So he screws them in as many ways he can
And everybody knows the deal is rotten
But why won't anybody ever leave?
Because of what their leader has forgotten
The golden vision these ones still believe.

I never agreed to this
I never agreed to any of this
I never agreed to be part of your
Small Group Psychosis
I have no more need for this
I never believed in any of this
I beg and I plead to get out of your
Small Group Psychosis

Now sycophants are never hard to come by
If one can be the biggest dog around
Adopt an endless posture of "hard done by"
And fight upon the lower moral ground
So many people never understand it
How someone who's so certain can be wrong
The way the petty tyrants always planned it
Compassion drowned by yearning to belong

It's all the same, in every situation
Where people turn their faces from the light
And band together, sharing alienation
And some uncanny sense of being right
And in these tiny pools the fish start fighting
And slightly bigger ones exert control
In all these situations it's the right thing
To head towards the sea, and save your soul

I never agreed to this
I never agreed to any of this
I never agreed to be part of your
Small Group Psychosis
I have no more need for this
I never believed in any of this
I beg and I plead to get out of your
Small Group Psychosis



Perhaps a bit longwinded, perhaps a bit heavy handed, but what's worse - making the point obscure or hammering it home with a 40-ton steam hammer? Answers on a postcard to Roger Waters.