Citizen Fish

How To Write Ultimate Protest Songs

Citizen Fish


You have to use your imagination
To get across the situation
You can simplify or overstate
To make it easier to relate
You can go right over the top
With a list of things you want to stop
Or you can concentrate on just one wrong
And make it easier to sing along

But if you say "I don't like this"
(Or that or the other in a big long list)
Then people write you off as a pessimist
Providing no alternatives
Or if you decide to simplify
And use four-letter words and spit in the sky
Then they'll chant the slogans and won't even try
To understand the reasons why

So perhaps the only way to make clear
The views you'd like everyone to hear
Is by taking a piece of everyday life
And looking at it closer in a different light
Let's take an example - the way we eat
Sat at the table and it's all so neat
Now you can understand that cos that's 'how it's done'
And it's probably happened to everyone

Having caught the attention you now decide
How far to push your thoughts outside
There's loads of angles, like dining out
The hunger of the old man whose cash ran out
The money made by corporations
Selling bombs not food to starving nations
You see there's a world-wide scope of affiliations
Depending how far you wanna stretch imaginations

Insert a little optimism now and then
Before complaining becomes a trend
Repetition defeats the point in the end
It numbs imagination till it can't comprehend
So walk the line between humour and gloom
Amongst the debris there's just enough room
To keep your mentality going strong
And create some ultimate protest songs