Sandinista! lyrics

"It ain't my fault
it's 6' o' clock in the morning"
He said
As he came up out of the night

When he found I had no coins to bum
He began to testify
Born in a depression
Born out of good luck
Born into misery
In the back of a truck

I'm telling you this mister
Don't be put off by looks
I been in the ring and I took those right hooks

Oh the loneliness
Used to knock me outharder than the rest

CHARLIE DON'T SURF
(THE CLASH)

CHARLIE DON'T SURF AND WE THINK HE SHOULD
CHARLIE DON'T SURF AND YOU KNOW THAT IT AIN'T NO GOOD
CHARLIE DON'T SURF FOR HIS HAMBURGER MAMA
CHARLIE'S GONNA BE A NAPALM STAR

EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD
MUST BE SOMETHING WE GET FROM BIRTH
ONE TRUTH IS WE NEVER LEARN
SATELLITES WILL MAKE SPACE BURN

WE BEEN TOLD TO KEEP THE STRANGERS OUT

Is the music of grove skin rock
Soaked in the diesel of was boys war?
Blood, black gold and the face of a judge
Is the music calling for a river of blood?

Beat the drums tonight, Alphonso
Spread the news all over the grove
The big meeting has decided
That total was must burn on the grove

Does it mean I should take my machete
To chop my way through the path of life?

They cried the tears, they shed the fears
Up and down the land
They stole guitars or used guitars
So the tape would understand.
Without even the slightest hope of a 1

*Left Channel*
Make sure!
Taking cover in the bunker tonight
Waiting for Bo Diddley's headlights
I feel alright
Gotta Fender Stratosphere
I can do anything tonight
It's in neon lights an' global rights
Frank? He's on the phone
There ain't no German girl outside
But who cares when its warm inside?
With music
Special mystery of music tragically
Exchanging slaves for majesties

So you're on the floor, at 54
Think you can last - at the Palace
Does your body go to the to and fro?
But tonight's the night - or didn't you know
That Ivan meets G.I. Joe

He tried his tricks- that Ruskie bear
The United Nations said it's all fair
He did the radiation - the chemical plague
But he could not win - with a cossack spin

The Vostok Bomb - the Stalin strike

Down the road came a Junco Partner
For he was loaded as can be
He was knocked out, knocked out loaded
He was a'wobblin' all over the street

Singing 6 months ain't no sentence
And one year ain't no time
I was born in Angola
Serving 14 to 99

Well I wish I had me $1 million dollars
Oh one million to call my own
I would raise meat and say, "grow for me baby"
I would raise me a tobacco farm

I wasn't going that far
The junkie slip!
I said I wasn't doin' it
The junkie slip!
Yea thought I'd find a rhythm in the junkie town
Thought I'd find a rhythm when the junkies hang around

Thought I'd go out walking to the junkie kind of beat
Setting on those bars that the junkies meet
The junkie slip!
Nail it down
The junkie slip!
This side of town
The junkie slip!

In these days you can get no rice
No razor blades but you can get knife
In these days see the people run
They have no food but the boy have gun
In these days they don't throw the stone
Nor use the voice they use the gun alone
In these days to be an oddity
Be hunted down like a scarcity

In these days don't beg for life
Wanna take Kingston advice?
Oh please don't beg for your life

Summon up the mas! Play on the pan!
Staring dreads are jerking their locks
As the white star liner sank in the docks
But on the drummers face, there is a look of dread
As he drums away 4

Now lightning strikes in old New York
It may be dark but I wanna talk
It might rain, it might snow
Too many things I got to know
If this is spring than it's time to sing
Never mind the l'il birdies wing
Look out, look out, old New York
New York's coming an' New York talks
Hey! Strike! Not once...
Strike! But twice!

Get out your money - peel a slab
Roll some notes an' hail a cab

So you've got to live up to your name
Or else I'll put you to shame... Listen!

If you say you a selector
You a fe have good selection
A-and I say if you say you a de special
Man I say I want to know your potential

You a say you a madness
You a say you a de best
But when I put you 'pon you feet
A-some a-some a say you can't play de beat

And I hear you say a Clash a you ruler

Look here!
What d'you think you're
Gonna be doin' next year?
No lie...
How you know you're not
Gonna up and die?
No doubt...

Soon enough your friends
Will find you out
Take care...
You know you might not have
Too much time to spare
I say...

How long have you been acting
Up this way?
One knows...
When you gonna get
Your own floorshow
I'm hip...
And you could use a button
On your lip

Look here

Come with me. I won't hide
We're going away on a ride
We meet each day, use time to see
While we're young and almost free

I've got to lose this skin I'm imprisoned in
Got to lose this skin I'm imprisoned in

Do not turn or hate to see
All the things you think we've got
Do not turn or hate to see
What happened to the wife of Lot

I've got to lose this skin I'm imprisoned in

Working for the devil
You'll have to pay his tax
That means going to see him
Down among the racks
You do his work so fine
He'll remember you

Worried for my friend
As he shows me round the flat
Where I don't wanna find him
His lips an' eyelids black
He don't believe my speech
That lines can and should be drawn
Lke if he had a shotgun
The barrels would be sawn

Swallowed by the river

Stop wastin' time
Right

One more breath

One more time in the ghetto
One more time if you please
One

One more time for the dying man
One more time if you please now

One more time

Must I get a witness for all this misery?
There's no need to brothers everybody can see
That it's one more time in the ghetto you know
One more time if you please now
One more time to the dying man
They say one more time if you please
The old lady kicks karate
For just a little walk down the street
The little baby he knows kung fu
He tries it on those he meets

Well, I'm running
Police on my back
Can you help me?
Police on my back

I am hiding
Police on my back
They were shooting
Police on my back

I've been running Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
Running Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday

What have I done?
What have I done?

(back to verse with other words)

I slept as I dreamed of a time long ago
I saw an army of rebels dancing on air
I dreamed as I slept, I could see the campfires
A song of the battle, that was born in the flames
And the rebels were waltzing on air
I danced with a girl to the tune of a waltz
That was written to be danced on the battlefield
I danced to the song of a voice of a girl
A voice that called "Stand till we fall

(Instrumental)

Have you ever asked yourself
Who holds the key that winds up Big Ben?

[Right Channel:] Silicone on Sapphire
[Left Channel:] Connection
[R:] My prerogative is zero
[L:] When is your start
[L:] What is your data
[R:] Databus
[L:] Databus
[R:] I'm pushing your breakpoints
[L:] (Anytime Mike)(?)
[R:] Know my subroutine
[L:] Motorola exor(?)sizer
[R:] Modem connecting
[L:] In sync
[R:] Buffer

Someone lights a cigarette while riding in a car
Some old guy takes a swig and passes back the jar
But where they were last night, no one can remember
Somebody got murdered, goodbye, for keeps, forever

Somebody got murdered
Somebody's dead forever

And you're minding your own business
Carrying spare change
You wouldn't cosh a barber, you're hungry all the same

They say immigrants steal the hubcaps
Of the respected gentlemen
They say it would be wine and roses
If England were for Englishmen again
Well I saw a dirty overcoat
At the foot of the pillar of the road
Propped inside was an old man
Whom time would not erode
When the night was snapped by sirens
Those blue lights circled past
The dancehall called for an ambulance

It's up to you not to heed the call-up
'N' you must not act the way you were brought up
Who knows the reasons why you have grown up
Who knows the plans or why they were drawn up
It's up to you not to heed the call-up
I don't wanna die!
It's up to you to hear the call-up
I don't wanna kill
For he who will die is he who will kill
Maybe I wanna see the wheatfields

Start the car lets make a midnight run
Across the river to South London
To dance to the latest hi-fi sound
Of bass, guitar and drum
Seeking out a rhythm that can take the pressure off
Stepping in and out of that crooked crooked beat

Take a piece of cloth, a coin for thirst
For the sweat will start to run
With a cymbal splash, a word of truth
And a rocking bass and drum

No Gangboss, no!
We don't want the whip!

As we get weaker...

We don't want no Gangboss
We want to equalize

We...
Gang...
We want to equalize

No Gangboss, No!
We don't want the whip

As you get weaker
It will get harder
So don't be like him
Keep your bones
Of effort and strength
Don't sell them to him

We don't want no gangboss
We want to equalize
We don't want no gangboss
We want to equalize

Atom secrets, secret leaflet
Have the boys found the leak yet?
The molehill sets the wheel in motion
His downfall picks up locomotion

The people must have something good to read on a Sunday

The leader's wife takes a government car
In the dark to meet her minister
But the leader never leaves his door ajar
As he swings his whip from the Boer War

He wore a leather mask for his dinner guests

As the floods of God
Wash away sin city
They say it was written
In the page of the Lord
But I was looking
For that great jazz note
That destroyed
The walls of Jericho
The winds of fear
Whip away the sickness
The messages on the tablet
Was Valium
As the planets form
That golden cross Lord
I'll see you on
The Holy Cross Roads
After all this time
To believe in Jesus
After all those drugs

When I was waiting for your phonecall
The one that never came
Like a man about to burst
I was dying of thirst

Though I will never fade
Or get lost in this daze
Though I will disappear
Into the street parade

It's not too hard to cry
In these crying times
I'll take a broken heart
And take it home in parts
But I will never fade

I was in this place
By the first church of the city

The towers of London, these crumbling rocks
Reality estates that the hero's got
And every hour's maked by the chime of a clock
And whatcha gonna do when the darkness surrounds?
You can piss in the lifts which have broken down
You can watch from the debris the last bedroom light
We're invisible here just past midnight

The wives hate their husbands and their husbands don't care

There is a train at Version City
Waiting for the rhythm mail
If you can jump then jump right now
She can pull you through to better days

Is that the train that the speak off
The one I heard in my younger days
All great bluesmen have rode her
I'm jumping up gonna ride that train

There's a lonely soul out on the crossroads
He's waiting there in the pouring rain

Down the road came a Junco Partner
For he was loaded as can be
He was knocked out, knocked out loaded
He was a'wobblin' all over the street

Singing six
Six

Well I wish I would have me a great deal of money
Yeah and a-mighty

Give me

Down
Junco Partner

Well I'm down

Oh! Mama Mama look there!
Your children are playing in that street again
Don't you know what happened down there?
A youth of fourteen got shot down there
The Kokaine guns of Jamdown Town
The killing clowns, the blood money men
Are shooting those Washington bullets again
As every cell in Chile will tell
The cries of the tortured men
Remember Allende and the days before