| Here’s a poem
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| It goes like this
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| You’re off to work again
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| You need to make a wage
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| Although you kind of feel like it’s a waste of days
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| Measuring the hours of your life and the paper made
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| And now your pleasure is devoured, right?
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| It’s getting tedious to take the pace
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| I mean you’re sick of staying late
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| And rising early with a day to face
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| You know, punching them numbers in that database
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| And pretending that you care about the day-to-day
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| Of these office politics
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| Man they’re enough to make your faith decay
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| And so this morning you were staring in the mirror with your razor blade
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| And you noticed with a shiver that your face was grey
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| Because you realised
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| You’re actually, genuinely pissed off
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| Every single time your train’s delayed
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| And you got this weird feeling
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| Like you’re beginning to fade away
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| But it’s cool though
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| Because you’ve got this girlfriend that you’ve been seeing for a while now
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| And you love her but you don’t really feel the same when she smiles now
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| I mean you only ever make love with the lights out
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| She don’t really seem as on it as she used to
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| But it’s fine, right?
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| It’s fine
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| Because now’s the time for settling down
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| The time for making do
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| So you go home
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| You turn your brain off
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| And you rent a film off pay-per-view
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| Sometimes you wonder what your younger self would make of you
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| You’re happy, in a way
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| You’re really happy, right?
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| Like any of your mates from school
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| And it’s true the cooler ones all fucked off and got them arts jobs
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| In Shoreditch
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| And now you meet 'em in the bar as you watch 'em carry on like heart-throbs
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| And it always ends up messy no matter how chilled out it starts off
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| All of a sudden you’ve gone and got yourself involved in a danceoff
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| You’re like, «mate this is great, I mean I am rushing my arse off»
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| Stood there feeling like you’re on some sort of ride you can’t stop
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| Next thing you’re in the chippy rowing with some prick who’s got a fast gob
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| Just another night to wake up from and laugh off
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| And so life goes on the bubble
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| It’s tunnel vision all week, right?
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| And our weekends, well they’re for seeing double
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| So how we ever going to see that we’re in trouble?
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| We’re like a dog wagging its tail expecting a treat
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| Cause it’s learned how to put on its own filthy, stinking muzzle
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| And so life goes on in the bubble
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| It’s tunnel vision all week
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| And our weekends, well they’re for seeing double
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| So how we ever going to see that we’re in trouble?
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| We’re like a dog baring its teeth, protecting its own muzzle
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| Meanwhile, you’re walking through the city with your shoulders squared
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| You’re like «man, I’m from the End, you lot don’t know the load I bear»
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| You’re looking at the people that you pass with a ferocious glare
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| These suits and ties going on like they don’t know you’re there
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| You’re sick of feeling insignificant
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| Your ambition’s as brilliant as anybody else’s
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| But your temperament is militant
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| Cause every other day brings the death of an innocent
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| This inner city living is seeing more wakes than Finnegan
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| And all around you is suspicion, power games and fast living
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| Everybody’s trying to get paid
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| You can’t even rave without someone getting stabbed over something
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| It’s a crying shame
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| Because you’re like, «Fuck the higher plane, I want a fast car and a diamond
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| chain»
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| It feels like everybody’s out here trying to find their fame
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| They want their names to ring out like the alarms before the sirens came
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| They wanna leave the people shaking like a lion’s mane
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| Cause they’ve been denied for so long
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| They’re so sure they have a prize to claim
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| So tell me, is it time for grief
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| Or is it time for blame
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| I’ll stand right here and tell you lot it’s time for neither, mate
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| It’s a time for change
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| Cause where I’m from young boys are given sentences before they’ve even learned
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| to sign their name
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| And all you’re trying to do is find your way through the lies and pain
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| Although that said
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| You have got you heart set on some new kicks
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| You want them fresh black Nikes with the blue stitch, right?
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| So you been putting in the hours
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| Moved a few bits
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| You’re like «what's the point in aiming any higher? |
| It seems useless» |
| And so it’s small victories and our city’s full of rubbish
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| Where our children are either overfed or undernourished
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| Where our talent is suffocated before it can be encouraged
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| And our true selves are completely ignored
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| So tell me
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| What’s the point in hoping for more
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| When there are soldiers at war
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| And they are dying without knowing what for
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| And all you want to do is think nothing, sit and smoke up a drawer
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| Mate, we’re going nowhere
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| Like a boat on the shore oblivious to the whole ocean
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| We’re a token of a broken, divorced generation whose folks don’t know the
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| rapport
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| Don’t get me wrong
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| Just like everybody else here I have my rent to pay
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| All I’m trying to say is it feels to me like we’re so caught up in the everyday
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| We’ve given all our strength away
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| So
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| Life goes on in the bubble
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| It’s tunnel vision all week
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| And our weekends, back off, Tempest, cause they’re for seeing double, right?
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| Well how we ever going to see that we’re in trouble?
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| We’re like a dog wagging its tail running off to fetch its own muzzle
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| And so life goes on in the bubble
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| It’s tunnel vision all week
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| And all weekends, well they’re for seeing double
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| So how we ever going to see that we’re in trouble?
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| Unless we look each other in the eye and say,
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| «Do you know what? |
| There’s a lot more to my life than the every day struggle.» |