TOO OLD
They try to tell us we are too old,
Too old to have a little fun.
They say 'Just be your age,
Get back into your cage
And leave the fun and dancing to the young.'
But, when they saw us on the floor,
Their doubts were gone for ever more.
They saw that we could have a ball,
We were not too old at all.
They tried to tell us we are too old,
Too old for foreign holidays.
They said we would never stand
The food in foreign lands,
The journey there would have us on our knees.
Our children saw that they were wrong
And knew that we knew all along
That age is not a prison wall
We are not too old at all.
GORDON MACPHERSON
YOU'VE GOT TO BE JOKING
if you think this is democracy,
this quango land
of the pampered middle classes,
this apology for socialism,
this New Labour
egocentric insult to our history,
this emptiness
of false celebrity,
this Blairite shallowness,
this shattered ignorance
of all that shines from our fought-for heritage,
this media connivance
and bone idleness,
this following of the fast buck,
this grovelling to the greed of capital,
this sickening homage to materialism,
this lack of human spirit
in our city centres,
this brutal selfishness
encouraged by a government
that denies our European roots,
that scans the wonder of the vast Atlantic
for feeble ideas to run with,
this rat race of a society
that puts self above solidarity,
these feeble careerist substitutes for activism
who have lost any real will for change,
who have become corrupted by a power-lust,
who lack any passion
other than to climb grimly up their greasy poles,
clinging on to their self-delusion,
ignoring, in their centrist way,
the true beauty of community,
handing out their gongs to the servile
and rubbishing the selfless folk
who work their little miracles every breathing day.
KEITH ARMSTRONG
TOO OLD
They try to tell us we are too old,
Too old to have a little fun.
They say 'Just be your age,
Get back into your cage
And leave the fun and dancing to the young.'
But, when they saw us on the floor,
Their doubts were gone for ever more.
They saw that we could have a ball,
We were not too old at all.
They tried to tell us we are too old,
Too old for foreign holidays.
They said we would never stand
The food in foreign lands,
The journey there would have us on our knees.
Our children saw that they were wrong
And knew that we knew all along
That age is not a prison wall
We are not too old at all.
GORDON MACPHERSON
YOU'VE GOT TO BE JOKING
if you think this is democracy,
this quango land
of the pampered middle classes,
this apology for socialism,
this New Labour
egocentric insult to our history,
this emptiness
of false celebrity,
this Blairite shallowness,
this shattered ignorance
of all that shines from our fought-for heritage,
this media connivance
and bone idleness,
this following of the fast buck,
this grovelling to the greed of capital,
this sickening homage to materialism,
this lack of human spirit
in our city centres,
this brutal selfishness
encouraged by a government
that denies our European roots,
that scans the wonder of the vast Atlantic
for feeble ideas to run with,
this rat race of a society
that puts self above solidarity,
these feeble careerist substitutes for activism
who have lost any real will for change,
who have become corrupted by a power-lust,
who lack any passion
other than to climb grimly up their greasy poles,
clinging on to their self-delusion,
ignoring, in their centrist way,
the true beauty of community,
handing out their gongs to the servile
and rubbishing the selfless folk
who work their little miracles every breathing day.
KEITH ARMSTRONG
