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The Post Colonial Global Blues

• I’ve got those post-colonial global blues.
  My shareholder’s done left me,
  followed loss leaders,
  profit taken to a haven in the Cayman Isles.
  And I’ll be in negative equity;
  if I act, I pay.
  And I’m relocating to a town called Jeopardy,
  where the headlines say there are thousands of jobs for me!
  And a lifestyle choice of global homogeny,
  and a concrete lack of unique identity.
  I’m perpetually sent to post-war Coventry,
  and I don’t know what to do.
  I’ve got those post-colonial global blues.
  
  And I’ll be crying tonight
  as they’re frying the shite
  in the Amazon meat;
  at least the kids’ll be happy
  with a fat-saturated treat,
  but I am starved of oxygen,
  going to ground like a fox again,
  descending Brunel’s human sewerage system,
  a rat in the rat race,
  drowning in the green wash from
  ‘British’ Petroleum.
  
  The glass ceiling is mythical
  is the message to the cynical,
  but overshoot your station
  and the barriers are physical.
  
  Speculation won’t help my present predicament,
  trapped in a metropolis of tropical germs,
  finding it very diffi cult to move.
  I’ve got those post-colonial global blues.
  
  And I’m stuck in a virtual queue,
  and I know my call’s not important to you;
  a robot’s done sent me to Timbuktu.
  The accent cost just a penny or two.
  
  Spare some copper if you don’t mind.
  What? From a Zambian pit that weren’t even mine?!
  Where they’re stuffed in a hole in a debt-ridden mine?!
  Metropole dictates: Copper – I’ll run power though mine.
  
  I could speak out freely through the telecom wires,
  expose the situation to millions online,
  but what exactly does protest do?
  Police sit supping their Indian brew,
  controlling the kettle for an hour or two.
  So, junkie, on review:
  I give you this metal that doesn’t
  belong to me or you to you,
  you spike your vein, let the numbness flow through,
  as the cash flows to an Afghan funding
  suffering through opium roots,
  I buy a poppy to support our troops,
  one returns psychologically abused
  and replaces you when you’ve turned blue.
  I don’t see what’s in it for me or for you, or for the peasant farmers or for the troops;
  we’ve all got those post-colonial global blues.
  
  The colour supplement made it black and white,
  divided the world with its polarised views,
  London talking through north and south,
  New York the other way round.
  
  Can’t stop people reproducin’,
  population’ll soon be doublin’ –
  abortions in the basement
  from mixing up the messages,
  johnnies on the protestants
  running all the governments.
  
  Look out, kids,
  it’s original sin.
  I don’t know Zen,
  but when you are born again
  you’ll be a duck or an alley cat
  looking for a new trend.
  The Nasdaq man selling futures to new men
  wants several million dollar bills
  but you’ve only got yen,
  and from a spent to a vicious military force
  this simply will not do;
  you’ve got those
  post-colonial global blues.
  
  Get sick, stay sick,
  pharmaceuticals get rich,
  don’t need a weatherman
  to tell me that the world’s fucked
  and I need me a pick-me-up,
  but I can’t seem to see any English proper tea.
  I’ll have to resort to Colombian beans.
  It’ll Costa lotta Lotto tickets.
  At least we’ll see the profit trickle,
  to Amazon – we won’t see a nickel.
  Triple-dip your grotty pickle,
  it won’t come back to you.
  You’ve got those post-colonial global blues.
  
  Staring at identical shops flogging sportswear,
  from Leicester to Leicester Square,
  that dedicated slaves to fashion.
  I stand sweating, guilty, in my branded shoes.
  
  I’ve got those post-colonial global blues.
  
  At least Blue Planet’s on after the corporate news.
  
  The world’s getting bluer,
  the seas are getting bigger,
  the rich are getting fatter,
  like a Christmas goose,
  flying over continents
  with an urge to consume,
  and sometimes I wonder,
  what am I gonna do?
  cos there ain’t no cure
  for those post-colonial global blues.