A Broken Promised Land - Skyclad

See the red Messiah high upon a soap-box pulpit

Agitating his apostles with the gospels in his hand

While apprentice Hitlers gather down in inner city subways

To immortalize their ignorance with aerosol spray cans

Life is the lesson

History our tutor

Learn from the past

Preserve us a future

So many causes I could die for but I don’t know which is right

In this millenia of martyrs and injustices to fight

Why must brother kill his brother when united they should stand?

Men by swords and words divided in our Broken Promised Land

These tattered battle standards fly, their colours do not run

Unlike our tears that trickle down the decades soon to come

You promised us a Golden Age, we couldn’t wait to try it

But never told us of the blood we’d have to shed to buy it

We are brought forth with nothing, we struggle for nothing

And then unto nothing return

Though their words have no meaning, to question them: «Treason!»

Look back, watch the pages of history burn

Our Devil has two wings, both left wing and right

They carry him far on this anarchic flight

'Til the fools of all the nations now at his command

Bring darkness to once green, now unpleasant lands

The voices on your TV are like whispers in a dream

Someone else’s nightmares in a place you’ve never been

But the streets run red round Tiananmen Square

And the blood won’t wash away

You don’t recognise their faces, so young and dead they stay

You’ve never had to answer to the barrel of a gun

So how could you expect

Expect what was to come?

In the troubled streets of Moscow and in tenements in Moss Side

There are people using silver tongues to turn dissenting worms

How can the dissatisfaction of some left or right wing faction

Hope to justify the bombs that burst, the innocents that burn?

We move in vicious circles as we fan the fires of hate

And laugh as the Four Horsemen clamour at the starter’s gate

We are brought forth with nothing, we struggle for nothing

And then unto nothing return

Though their words have no meaning, to question them: «Treason!»

Look back, watch the pages of history burn

Our Devil has two wings, both left wing and right

They carry him far on this anarchic flight

'Til the fools of all the nations now at his command

Bring darkness to once green, now unpleasant lands

Preserve us a future!