Stand or Fall
The Fixx
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Crying parents tell their children
If you survive don't do as we did
A son exclaims there'll be nothing to do to
Her daughter says she'll be dead with you
While foreign affairs are screwing rotten,
Line morale has hit rock bottom
Dying embers stand forgotten
Talks of peace were being trodden
Stand or fall, state your peace tonight
Stand or fall, state your peace tonight
Is this the value of our existence
Should we proclaim with such persistence
Our destiny relies on conscience
Red or blue, what's the difference?
Stand or fall, state your peace tonight
Stand or fall, state your peace tonight
It's the Euro theatre
It's the Euro theatre
It's the Euro theatre
An empty face reflects extinction
Ugly scars divide the nation
Desecrate the population
There will be no exultation
Stand or fall, state your peace tonight
Stand or fall, state your peace tonight
It's the Euro theatre
It's the Euro theatre
It's the Euro theatre
Stand or fall
Stand or fall
Stand or fall
Stand or fall
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Late at night long ago,
as I sat doing advanced calculus homework,
this song would often come on.
It always stopped me,
and I'd listen to it.
It was the early 80s,
Ronnie Raygun was sitting in the Oval Office,
daily making threats against the Soviet Union,
daily destroying unions,
pensions, retirements;
he was starting unneeded and unwanted wars
overseas, stoking hatreds worldwide,
wiping out the commonweal,
upping the mistrust, and stockpiling nuclear warheads.
I was fairly convinced humanity would not survive to see the 90s.
We did, of course; and so people look at the evil
that dickhead did to, well, everything, and they proclaim
him a great president.
He was not.
This song was written in direct protest of him
and all like him, including, especially,
the detestable Margaret Thatcher,
Queen Bitch of the Universe.
Incredibly, depressingly,
this song has aged remarkably well.
It is easily as relevant today as it was in 1982,
arguably more so.
Almost inarguably, my generation--the Boomers--
are the single worst generation in all of human history.
We helped to put that asshole in office,
then, thirty-six years later,
voted overwhelmingly to put the actual
worst president in American history into office.
Today my generation, blinded by hate,
deaf to reason,
unwilling to leave their pathetic echo chambers,
threaten all life on Earth with their
blatant ignorance, bigotry, magical thinking,
conspiracy theories, selfishness, greed, consumption,
and abject indifference.
And I find myself singing:
"Crying parents tell their children
If you survive don't do as we did ..."
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Digital Art: Under Fell Center by yours truly
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