Thursday, October 16, 2008

Together We Can Make A Difference: Song Lyrics About Poverty

Continuing from my previous post: TheoPoetic Musings: Blog Action Day 2008 : Increasing Poverty Awareness---here are some of my song lyrics on the issue of poverty---

Here are some Bob Dylan influenced lyrics:

THE LOST, THE HUNGRY AND THE DYING
(Currin)

Gather round me, listen to a story I’ve to tell
It’s a story that you should already know so well
There’re hypocrites seeping into our fair churches and steeples
And they’re tearing our churches apart and splitting up our fair peoples
And taking them down to the valley of shame
Where the leaders in charge forget their names
But there is nothing to blame
But the ulterior motives of a higher power’s game
Which comes down to these cultic death-like conventions setup to cause them pain

Now, there’s people dying everywhere as sure as those churches’ sidewalks are paved
But the heads in those churches don’t care a bit
They don’t give a flip, they don’t wanna do anything about it
Because all they care about is whether the lost are saved
While those poor countries are dying of hunger pains
Getting killed in the pouring down acid rain
In the raging hypocritical religious diseases coming on just like a hurricane
The winds of the powers that be are blowing fast like a freight train
Stamping numbers on the dying souls and leaving them without a name
They just won’t to forget those who aren’t saved, for they are just a universal drain

There’s a war going on and it’s hidden underneath the robes of your preachers and priests
Stealing money to go save the lost and dying, who just want something to eat first
But your priests, they just want to save them and leave them to be cursed
Now’s not the time for political missionaries to leave hungered folks in the tides that be
While the priests sit on golden thrones with plenty of food to eat and fill up their brains
With trash by not practicing what they preach and not having any shame
And getting caught up in these conventional political games
To leave the lost without a name, and from their unholy crusades earn all that they can gain
Those who philosophize disgrace and politicize grace are the only ones to blame

And those who wield the arrows of gossip’s sudden dust are the ones that cause the fall of man
While putting the unbelievers down for believing in all that they really can
And leaving them starving and naked, left to the wind of deceitful blazes
Of these conventions that turn their hateful gazes
Onto the ones who really know the Truth of the world and everything in life
But the religious leaders, they are just the ones that criticize with their knifes
And cause those who are really seeking to lose their life and die
And get stuck in the label of being misunderstood and the ones that hold the lies
Because to our church leaders, they aren’t worth anything in their eyes

And the ones whom think that they have God on their side are the only ones that misunderstand
They disrespect other cultures and the people they are trying to save by telling them that they are damned
For not believing in the Pope, the political church leaders and the law and order
For they think anyone who doesn’t is a savage, so they run them out of their own borders
While filling the people they have in their control heads full of lies
And telling them to go out and murder in the name of religion and claim their prize
And to not give the hungry and the dying food, unless they except their own way of life
You know that’s just what the ancient people did when they crucified Jesus Christ
It’s because that He didn’t change to their way of life that He died
But it’s not up to you or me, you know it’s up to them to decide

But the leaders hiding behind the Cross are the ones that wanna force a decision on the dying
By lying to them and scaring them even more into hiding
It was those who brainwashed souls that killed the Jews, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi
Too, and many others besides them, for being just whom they were called to be
While breeding more religiously hateful tools to plant more lies
To take away food from those who need it, to blow them right between the eyes
They are only pawns in the hands of the greedy power mad devils in disguise
Who are taking over our churches and brainwashing the innocent lives
Into believing all that they say and never giving them a chance to decide
They just tell them to not feed those lost souls and just to let them die

Yes, and there is nothing to blame
But the ulterior motives of a higher power’s game
Which comes down to these cultic death-like conventions setup to cause them pain
Now, is not the time for rejoicing and arguments, which cause men to fall
And now, is not the time for deciding whom is lost enough to save, now
And now, is not the time to go pushing religion on people and all and all
Now, is just the time for tears to stop the war from going on any further down the line
And now, is the time to wake up any eyes that are still left blind
And now, is just the right time to stop all this bullshit going on all around, right now
So stop all the bullshit, already, right now.............

© 2002 T/H Songs, Inc.
© 2002 GB Lyrics, C.O.

And here are some Bruce Springsteen influenced lyrics:

THESE EMPTY STREETS
(Currin)

These streets are empty
Everybody is down at the factory
And so am I
We hear them lonesome bells
Gonna keep on working, till the day we die

Down at the factory-we’re making dogs of war
We’re crafting tools of destruction, we’re raising steel
We’ve got to beat that steel down, we got to keep on ringing that drill
Down at the factory, we keep on going for 12 hours or more
In this place is the rich man’s paradise, but for us it’s the gates of hell

Forming scrap metal can be quite hard, but for soldiers we must provide
We want them to kill more people, so that we can stay alive
And with that smoke that comes out that smokestack, another dream has died
Been doing this kind of work for about ten years or more
Yes, and it’s true this factory, during a time of war

Always keeps these streets empty
And those trains we forever ride down to the factory
We’re selling our hearts and souls, because we’re Union men
As we hear them same ole lonesome bells
We ease ourselves back into our familiar stations

On the floor, we have the look of death in our eyes
Gotta keep on working till we retire or die
Whichever comes first, any way
We know that if we die, the only place we’ll go is to hell
In that factory of the great beyond for blasting a hundred men away

And another hundred more straight back to their Maker in the sky
Now, I use to have a girl that I’d keep right by my side
But she left me here with a little boy and a Union card
Now, that little boy and I, we just sit here working the factory drill hard
Yeah, we’re working off debts, cos everything fell apart in this factory cell

And these streets keep on staying empty
Cos everybody is down at the factory
And so am I
We hear them lonesome bells
Gonna keep on working, till the day we die

Gotta work that drill, gotta beat that steel down
We gotta lay down the line, cos everything we have the Union owns
We ain’t got no possessions, we ain’t got no home
Unless it belongs to the company and we’re sailing around
Main Street, you know we are bound to wind up dead quicker than the rest

We’re breathing smoke, we’re breathing steel fumes, can’t get no clean breath
And the rags we wear, we clench in our hands, but they get ground up in the dirt
Our guts they are raging with the dust on our backs and the fire of company hurt
The economy, well it carves it’s valleys into our minds as we burn through the day
Through the night as we keep on working to light this country’s way

Through the war--always keeps these streets empty
And those trains we forever ride down to the factory
We’re selling our hearts and souls, because we’re Union men
As we hear them same ole lonesome bells
We ease ourselves back into our familiar stations

And down at the factory-we keep on making them dogs of war
And we’re crafting tools of destruction, we’re raising steel
We’ve got to beat that steel down, we got to keep on ringing that drill
Down at the factory, we keep on going for 12 hours or more
In this place is the rich man’s paradise, but for us it’s the gates of hell
Yeah, in this place is the rich man’s paradise, but for us it’s just the gates of hell
Cos us, poor folks, keep on working as we die out little by little, piece by piece
And leave behind us the dogs of war and these empty streets

© 2002 T/H Songs, Inc.
© 2002 GB Lyrics, C.O.


Some other things to mention:





Bono And Poverty Relief:

THE 2008 CAMPAIGN; Bono's Poverty-Fighting Plan Promoted by Two Ex-Senators
By JEFF ZELENY
Published: June 12, 2007

Two former Senate leaders who were once fierce adversaries, Bill Frist and Tom Daschle, joined together Monday to promote a bipartisan effort to make global poverty a central issue of the 2008 presidential race.

The antipoverty drive, called the One Campaign, which was founded by the rock star Bono to combat hunger and draw attention to the plight of children in African countries, is pledging to invest $30 million to persuade presidential candidates to address the issue.

''It is in the strategic and national interest of the United States of America,'' said Mr. Frist, a Republican and former Senate majority leader from Tennessee. ''People do not go to war with people who save their children's lives.''

Both Democratic and Republican presidential candidates will be asked to sign a pledge in the fall saying they will offer proposals to fight H.I.V./AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, improve children's health in other ways, increase access to education, provide access to clean water and reduce by half the number of people who suffer from hunger.

''Through the extraordinary challenge we now have, it is incumbent upon all of us to recognize that this must be a key part of American foreign policy,'' said Mr. Daschle, a Democrat and former Senate majority leader from South Dakota.

Mr. Frist and Mr. Daschle, co-chairmen of the One Vote '08 effort, began the lobbying campaign Monday at St. Mark's Episcopal Church here on Capitol Hill, with supporters joining by satellite from Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

While dozens of interest groups have formed coalitions to influence presidential candidates, the One Campaign stands apart because of its bipartisan leadership and a $22 million investment from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which will be invested in mobilizing supporters across the country.

The Republican and Democratic National Committees endorsed the effort Monday, saying presidential contenders should include proposals to combat global poverty in their campaign agendas. Organizers have hired experienced political strategists to work on the One Campaign, educating and urging voters to hold presidential candidates accountable.

''It is an idea where global poverty and disease transcend partisan politics,'' said Susan McCue, the president of the One Campaign.


Together we can make a difference and help eliminate poverty.
Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

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