Roger Waters Album

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Two things that have haunted me most are the days when I had to
collect the paybooks; and when I left Bill Hubbard in no-man's-land.
I was picked up and taken into their trench. And I'd no sooner taken
two or three steps down the trench when I heard a call, 'Hello Razz,
I'm glad to see you. This is my second night here,' and he said 'I'm
feeling bad,' and it was Bill Hubbard, one of the men we'd trained
in England, one of the original battalion. I had a look at his wound,
rolled him over; I could see it was probably a fatal wound.
You could imagine what pain he was in, he was dripping with sweat; and after
I'd gone about three shellholes, traversed that, had it been...had
there been a path or a road I could have done better. He pummeled
me, 'Put me down, put me down, I'd rather die, I'd rather die, put me
down.'
I was hoping he would faint. He said 'I can't go any further, let me die.' I said 'If I leave you here Bill you won't be found, let's
have another go.' He said 'All right then.' And the same thing
happened; he couldn't stand it any more, and I had to leave him
there, in no-man's-land."

What God wants God gets God help us all
What God wants God gets
The kid in the corner looked at the priest
And fingered his pale blue Japanese guitar
The priest said
God wants goodness
God wants light
God wants mayhem
God wants a clean fight
What God wants God gets
Don't look so surprised
It's only dogma
The alien prophet cried
The beetle and the springbok
Took the Bible from its hook
The monkey in the corner
Wrote the lesson in his book
What God wants God gets God help us all
God wants peace
God wants war
God wants famine
God wants chain stories
What God wants God gets
God wants sedition
God wants sex
God wants freedom
God wants semtex
What God wants God gets
Don't look so afraid
I'm only joking
The alien comic lied
The jackass and hyena
Took the feather from its hook
The monkey in the corner
Wrote the joke down his book
What God wants God gets
God wants boarders
God wants crack
God wants rainfall
God wants wetbacks
What God wants God gets
God wants voodoo
God wants shrines
God wants law
God wants organised crime
God wants crusade
God wants jihad
God wants good
God wants bad
What God wants God gets

The monkey sat on a pile of stones
And he stared at the broken bone in his hand
The strains of a Viennese quartet
Rang out across the land
And the monkey looked up at the stars
And he thought to himself
Memory is a stranger
History is for fools
And he cleaned his hands
In a pool of holy writing
Turned his back on the garden
And set out for the nearest town
Hold on, hold on soldier
When you add it all up
The tears and the marrow bone
There's an ounce of gold
And an ounce of pride in each legend
And the Germans kill the Jews
And the Jews kill the Arabs
And the Arabs kill the hostages
And that is the news
And is it any wonder
That the monkey's confused
He said Mama Mama
The President's a fool
Why do I have to keep reading
These technical manuals
And the joint chiefs of staff
And the brokers on Wall Street said
Don't make us laugh
You're a smart kid
Time is linear
Memory's a stranger
History's for fools
Man is a tool in the hands
Of the great God Almighty
And they gave him command
Of a nuclear submarine
Sent him back in search of
The Garden of Eden

Can't you see
It all makes perfect sense
Expressed in dollars and cents
Pounds shillings and pence
Can't you see
It all makes perfect sense
Little black soul departs in perfect focus
Prime time fodder for the News at Nine
Darling is the child warm in the bed tonight
Hi everybody I'm Marv Albert
And welcome to our telecast
Coming to you live from Memorial Stadium
It's a beautiful day
And today we expect a sensational matchup
But first our global anthem
Can't you see
It all makes perfect sense
Expressed in dollars and cents
Pounds shillings and pence
Can't you see
It all makes perfect sense
And here come the players
As I speak to you now the captain
Has his cross hairs zeroed in on the oil rig
It looks to me like he's going to attack
By the way did you know that a submarine
Captain earns 200,000 dollars a year
Oh that's less tax Marv yeah less tax
Uh thank you Emery you're welcome
Now back to the game he fires one yes
There goes two both fish are running
The rig is going into a prevent defense
Will they make it I don't think so
Can't you see
It all makes perfect sense
Expressed in dollars and cents
Pounds shillings and pence
Can't you see
It all makes perfect sense

You have a natural tendency
To squeeze off a shot
You're good fun at parties
You wear the right masks
You're old but you still
Like a laugh in the locker room
You can't abide change
You're at home on the range

You opened your suitcase
Behind the old workings
To show off the magnum
You deafened the canyon
A comfort a friend
Only upstaged in the end
By the Uzi machine gun
Does the recoil remind you
Remind you of sex

Old man what the hell you gonna kill next
Old timer who you gonna kill next

I looked over Jordan and what did I see
Saw a U.S. Marine in a pile of debris
I swam in your pools
And lay under your palm trees
I looked in the eyes of the Indian
Who lay on the Federal Building steps

And through the range finder over the hill
I saw the frontline boys popping their pills
Sick of the mess they find
On their desert stage
And the bravery of being out of range
Yeah the question is vexed

Old man what the hell you gonna kill next
Old timer who you gonna kill next

Hey bartender over here
Two more shots
And two more beers
Sir turn up the TV sound
The war has started on the ground
Just love those laser guided bombs
They're really great
For righting wrongs
You hit the target
And win the game
From bars 3,000 miles away
3,000 miles away

We play the game
With the bravery of being out of range
We zap and maim
With the bravery of being out of range
We strafe the train
With the bravery of being out of range
We gained terrain
With the bravery of being out of range

With the bravery of being out of range
We play the game
With the bravery of being out of range

Standing at the window
A farmer's wife in Oxford shire
Glances at the clock; it's nearly time for tea
She doesn't see
The phantom in the hedgerow dip its wings
Doesn't hear the engine sing
But in the cockpit's techno glow
Behind the Ray Ban© shine
The kid from Cleveland
In the comfort of routine
Scans his dials and smiles
Secure in the beauty of military life
There is no right or wrong
Only tin cans and cordite and white cliffs
And blue skies and flight flight flight
The beauty of military life
No questions only orders and flight, only flight
What a beautiful sight in his wild blue dream
The eternal child leafs through his war magazine
And his kind Uncle Sam feeds ten trillion in change


Into the total entertainment combat video game
And up here in the stands
The fans are going wild
The cheerleaders flip
When you wiggle your hip
And we all like the bit when you take
The jeans from the refrigerator and
Then the bad guy gets hit
And were you struck by the satisfying way
The swimsuit sticks to her skin
Like BB gun days
When knives pierce autumn leaves
But that's okay see the children bleed
It'll look great on the TV
And in Tripoli another ordinary wife
Stares at the dripping her old man hadn't
Time to fix
Too busy mixing politics and rhythm
In the street below

Hark the wire service sing
Clear the satellite link
Check the fax machine
Hold the lead story boys
There's some great pictures coming in
Now the pilot's heartbeat slows
Palms dry out
No questions only orders
And the F-1 glides in nose-up
Through the cloudbase and the
Ground crew cheers as he puts down


His landing gear
Hey boy you're a hero take this cigar
Back home in Cleveland
All the papers and local TV stations
Will be calling your ma
And the farmer's wife
Shoos the cat off the chair
She says sit down my dear
Was the milking all right
Our American friends are late home tonight

When the sleigh is heavy
And the timber wolves are getting bold
You look at your companions
And test the water of their friendship
With you toe
They significantly edge
Closer to the gold
Each man has his price Bob
And yours was pretty low
History is short the sun just a minor star
The poor man sells his kidneys
In some colonial bazaar
Que sera sera
Is that your new Ferrari car
Nice but I'll think I'll wait for the F50
You don't have to be a Jew
To disapprove of murder
Tears burn my eyes
Moslem or Christians Mullah or Pope
Preacher or poet who was it wrote
Give any one species too much rope
And they'll fuck it up
And last night on TV
A Vietnam vet
Takes his beard and his pain
And his alienation twenty years
Back to Asia again
Sees the monsters they made
In formaldehyde floating 'round
Meets a gook on a bike
A good little tyke
A nice enough guy
With the same soldier's eyes
Tears burn my eyes
What does it mean
This tearjerking scene
Beamed into my home
That it moves me so much
Why all the fuss
It's only two humans being
It's only two humans being
Tears burn my eyes
What does it means
This tender TV
This tearjerking scene
Beamed into my home
You don't have to be a Jew
To disapprove my murder
Tears burn my eyes
Moslem or Christian Mullah or Pope
Preachers or poet who was it wrote
Give any one species too much rope
And they'll fuck it up

(TV Evangelist)
Do you believe in a better day?
Do you have faith in a golden way?
If you do, then we must come together this day
Come together as one, united television audience
Brought together by the sound of my voice
United, united financially, united socially,
United spiritually, and all possible ways
Through the power of money
And the power of prayers...."

What God wants God gets God help us all
What God wants God gets

God wants dollars
God wants cents
God wants pounds, shillings, and pence
God wants guilders
God wants Kroner
God wants Swiss francs
And God wants French francs

(Oui il veut des francs francais)

God wants escudos
God wants pesetas
Don't send lira
God don't want small potatoes
God wants small towns
God wants pain
God wants clean up rock campaigns
God wants widows
God wants solutions
God wants TV
God wants contributions

What God wants God gets God help us all
What God wants God gets
What God wants God gets God help us all
What God wants God gets

God wants silver
God wants gold
God wants his secret never to be told
God wants gigolos
God wants giraffes
God wants politics
God wants a good laugh

What God wants God gets God help us all
What God wants God gets

God wants friendship
God wants fame
God wants credit
God wants blame
God wants poverty
God wants wealth
God wants insurance
God wants to cover himself

What God wants God gets God help us all
What God wants God gets
What God wants God gets God help us all
What God wants God gets
(repeating)

Don't be afraid, it's only business
The alien prophet sighed
The vulture and the magpie took
The cash box from its hook
The monkey in the corner
Wrote the figures in his book
Crazed the checkout lady's fingers
Flash across the till
And the captain posts the menu of the day
And in banks across the world
Christians, Moslems, Hindus, Jews
And every other race, creed, colour, tint or hue
Get down on their knees and pray
The raccoon and the groundhog neatly
Make up bags of change
But the monkey in the corner
Well he's slowly drifting out of range

Christ, it's freezing inside
The veteran cries
The hyenas break cover
And stream through the meadow
And the vet rolls in
To his bottle of gin
So he picks up a stone
That looks like a bone
And the bullets fly
And the rivers run dry
And the fat girls sigh
And the network anchor persons lie
And the soldier's alone
In the video zone
But the monkey's not watching
He's slipped out to the kitchen
To pile the dishes
And answer the phone

We were watching TV
Watching TV
We were watching TV
Watching TV

In Tiananmen Square
Lost my baby there
My yellow rose
In her bloodstained clothes
She was a short order pastry chef
In a Dim Sum dive on the Yangtze tideway
She had shiny hair
She was the daughter of an engineer
Won't you shed a tear
For my yellow rose
My yellow rose
In her bloodstained clothes
She had perfect breasts
She had high hopes
She had almond eyes
She had yellow thighs
She was a student of philosophy
Won't you grieve with me
For my yellow rose
Shed a tear
For her bloodstained clothes
She had shiny hair
She had perfect breasts
She had high hopes
She had almond eyes
She had yellow thighs
She was the daughter of an engineer
So get out your pistols
Get out your stones
Get out your knives
Cut them to the bone
They are the lackeys of the grocer's machine
They built the dark satanic mills
That manufacture hell on earth
They bought the front row seats on Calvary
They are irrelevant to me

And I grieve for my sister

We were watching TV
Watching TV
We were watching TV
Watching TV

She wore a white bandanna that said
Freedom now
She thought the Great Wall of China
Would come tumbling down
She was a student
Her father was an engineer
Won't you shed a tear
For my yellow rose
My yellow rose
In her bloodstained clothes
Her grandpa fought old Chiang Kai-shek
That no-good, low-down dirty rat
Who used to order his troops
To fire on the women and children
Imagine that; imagine that
And in the spring of '48
Mao Tse-tung got quite irate
And he kicked that old dictator Chiang
Out of the state of China
Chiang Kai-shek came down in Formosa
And they armed the island of Quemoy
And the shells were flying across the China Sea
And they turned Formosa into a shoe factory
Called Taiwan

And she is different from Cro-Magnon man
She's different from Anne Boleyn
She is different from the Rosenbergs
And from the unknown Jew
She's different from the unknown Nicaraguan
Half superstar, half victim
She's a picture star, conceptually new
And she is different from the Dodo
And from the Kankabono
She's different from the Aztec
And from the Cherokee
She's everybody's sister
She's symbolic of our failure
She's the one in fifty million
Who can help us to be free
Because she died on TV

"I went to buy a....a gas bottle. At first I wanted to buy a big one, but then I hadn't got enough money, so I had to buy a smaller one. And I think if I bought a bigger one, then it would have been... the way I wanted it. And then, we went down, and I put the children to bed. And I tidied the flat and everything. And then they were asleep and everything was a kind of night. I made a bed in the bathroom. I carried them there and put on the gas bottle. But today when I think back ... about that. If God did take me, I would've have been in hell because I wasn't right."

Reached back for the bottle
And rubbed against the lamp
Genie came out smiling
Like some Eastern tramp
He said hey boy what's happening
What is going on
You can have three wishes
If you don't take too long
I said well
I wish they all were happy on the Lebanon
Wish somebody'd help me write this song
I wish when I was young
My old man had not been gone
Genie said consider it done
There's something in the air
And you don't know what it is
You see someone through a window
Who you've just learned to miss
And the road leads on to glory but
You've used up your last wish
Your last wish
And you want her to come home
Genie said I'm sorry
But that's the way it goes
Where the hell's lamp sucker
It's time for me to go
Bye
There's something in the air
And you don't know what it is
You see someone through a window
Who you've just learned to miss
And the road leads on to glory but
You've used up your last wish
Your last wish
And you want her to come home

Miraculous you call it babe
You ain't seen nothing yet
They've got Pepsi in the Andes
They've McDonalds in Tibet
Yosemite's been turned into
A golf course for the Japs
And the Dead Sea is alive with rap

Between the Tigris and Euphrates
There's a leisure centre now
They've got all kinds of sports
They've got Bermuda shorts
They had sex in Pennsylvania
A Brazilian grew a tree
And a doctor in Manhattan
Saved a dying man for free

It's a miracle
It's a miracle
It's a miracle
Another miracle

By the grace of God Almighty
And the pressures of marketplace
The human race has civilized itself
It's a miracle

We've got a warehouse of butter
We've got oceans of wine
We've got famine when we need it
We've got a designer crime
We've got Mercedes
We've got Porsche
Ferrari and Rolls Royce
Yeah
We've got a choice

She said meet me
In the Garden of Gethsemane my dear
The Lord said Peter I can see
Your house from here
An honest man
Finally reaped what he had sown
And a farmer in Ohio has just repaid a loan

It's a miracle
It's a miracle
It's a miracle
Another miracle

By the grace of God Almighty
And pressures of marketplace
The human race has civilized itself
It's a miracle

We cower in our shelters
With our hands over our ears
Lloyd-Webber's awful stuff
Runs for years and years and years
An earthquake hits the theatre
But the operetta lingers
Then the piano lid comes down
And breaks his fucking fingers
It's a miracle

Doctor, Doctor, what is wrong with me
This supermarket life is getting long
what is the heart life of a color tv
what is the shelf life of a teenage queen

Ooooh western woman, Ooooh western girl

News hound sniffs the air, when Jessica Hahn goes down
He latches on to that symbol of detatchment
Attracted by the peeling away of feeling
The celebrity of the abused shell, the belle

Ooooh western woman, Oooooh western girl
Ooooh western woman, Oooooh western girl

And the children of Melrose strut their stuff
is absolute zero cold enough
and out in the valley, warm and clean
the little ones sit by their tv screen
no thoughts to think, no tears to cry
all sucked dry, down to the very last breathe
bartender what is wrong with me,
why am i so out of breathe
the captain said excuse me ma'am
the species has amused itself to death

amused itself to death
it has amused itself to death
amused itself to death

we watched a tragedy unfold
we did as we were told
we bought and sold
it was the greatest show on earth
but then it was over
we ohhed and awed
we drove our racing cars
we ate our last few jars of caviar
and somewhere out there in the stars
a keen eyed look out
spied a flickering light
our last hurrah
our last hurrah
and when they found our shadows
grouped round the tv sets
they ran down every lead
they repeated every test
they checked out all the data on their list
and then the alien anthropologist
admitted they were still perplexed
but on eliminating every other reason
for our sad demise
they logged the only explanation left
this species has amused itself to death

no tears to cry, no feelings left
the species has amused itself to death
amused itself to death

[Alf Razzell:] "Years later, I saw Bill Hubbard's name on the memorial to the missing at Aras. And I...when I saw his name I was absolutely transfixed; it was as though he...he was now a human being instead of some sort of nightmarish memory of how I had to leave him, all those years ago. And I felt relieved, and ever since then I've felt happier about it, because always before, whenever I thought of him, I said to myself, 'Was there something else that I could have done?' [ "I'd rather die, I'd rather die..."] And that always sort of worried me. And having seen him, and his name in the register - as you know in the memorials there's a little safe, there's a register in there with every name - and seeing his name and his name on the memorial; it sort of lightened my...heart, if you like." [donna:] "When was it that you saw his name on the memorial?" [Alf:] "Ah, when I was eighty-seven, that would be the year, ninete...eighty-four, nineteen eighty-four."