[oddone]

"Mad world" Gary Jules


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa-ae6_okmg

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for the daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere

Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I wanna drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow

And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you,
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it's a very, very
Mad world, mad world

Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy birthday, happy birthday
And I feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen

Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me, what's my lesson?
Look right through me, look right through me

And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you,
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it's a very, very
Mad world, mad world, mad world
Mad world mad world

Songwriters
Roland Orzabal

[Strummer]

Young Marble Giants - Final Day (1980)

When the rich die last
Like the rabbits
Running from a lucky past
Full of shadow cunning
And the world lights up
For the final day
We will all be poor
Having had our say

Put a blanket up on the window pane
When the baby cries lullaby again
As the light goes out on the final day
For the people who never had a say

There is so much noise
There is too much heat
And the living floor
throws you off your feet
As the final day falls into the night
There is peace outside
in the narrow light

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fygy9RDhREg

[PrestonSturges]

Wow, thanks for all the contributions. You all must admit, at least, that none of your bands have one to match my Pistol Whippin' Party Penguins' name!
Speaking of The Doors, The End seems even more apt:

[/quote]

Here is "The End" in "Apocalypse Now."

http://youtu.be/1b26BD5KjH0

[dohboi]

I forgot that it was used in that movie. Thanks.
Let's not forget that (the pre-Daryl Hannah) Jackson Browne had some pretty doomy, post-and pre-apoc lyrics, even if the music is sometimes more boppy than the mood of the words:

Can you see them dark clouds gathering up ahead
They're gonna wash this planet clean just like the Bible said
Well you can hold on steady
And try to get ready
But everybody's gonna get wet
Don't think it won't happen
Just because it hasn't happened yet.

"The Road and the Sky"
http://www.zapkolik.com/video/jackson-b ... sky-547027

And of course: "Before the Deluge"

...Some of them were angry at the way that the earth was abuse
By the men who had learned how to forge her beauty into power
And they struggled to protect her from them, only to be confused
By the magnitude of the fury, in the final hour.

And when the sand was gone and the time arrived
In the naked dawn only a few survived...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_-zQxrvYQg

[PhebaAndThePilgrim]

Leonard Cohen "Everybody Knows"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTc3hIEPTyo

[Plantagenet]

"They used to tell me I was building a dream…"

Brother can you spare a dime

Oil prices go up, everybody gets poorer, and the world is stuck year after year in re-depression. What better song then this classic?

[ritter]

Tom Waits "Earth died screaming"

Rudy's on the midway
And Jacob's in the hole
The monkey's on the ladder
The devil shovels coal
With crows as big as airplanes
The lion has three heads
And someone will eat the skin that he sheds
And the earth died screaming
The earth died screaming
While I lay dreaming of you

Well hell doesn't want you
And heaven is full
Bring me some water
Put it in this skull
I walk between the raindrops
Wait in Bug House Square
And the army ants
They leave nothin' but the bones
And the earth died screaming
While I lay dreaming of you

There was thunder
There was lightning
Then the stars went out
And the moon fell from the sky
It rained mackerel
It rained trout
And the great day of wrath has come
And here's mud in your big red eye
The poker's in the fire
And the locusts take the sky
And the earth died screaming
While I lay dreaming of you

[ritter]

I often get some Pixies stuck in my head, too.

"Monkey Gone to Heaven"

There was a guy
An under water guy who controlled the sea
Got killed by ten million pounds of sludge
From New York and New Jersey

This monkey's gone to Heaven
This monkey's gone to Heaven
This monkey's gone to Heaven
This monkey's gone to Heaven

The creature in the sky
Got sucked in a hole
Now there's a hole in the sky

And the ground's not cold
And if the ground's not cold
Everything is gonna burn
We'll all take turns, I'll get mine too

This monkey's gone to Heaven
This monkey's gone to Heaven
This monkey's gone to Heaven
This monkey's gone to Heaven

Rock me Joseph, Alberto, Santiago

If Man is 5, if Man is 5, if Man is 5
Then the Devil is 6, then the Devil is 6
The Devil is 6, the Devil is 6 and if the Devil is 6
Then God is 7, then God is 7

This monkey's gone to Heaven
This monkey's gone to Heaven
This monkey's gone to Heaven

[Newfie]

Cash and Cohen picks are good ones. Here is another oldie for when we get desperate and need more revenge justification.

Randy Neuman.

Political Science


No one likes us
I don't know why.
We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try.
But all around even our old friends put us down.
Let's drop the big one and see what happens.

We give them money
But are they grateful?
No they're spiteful
And they're hateful.
They don't respect us so let's surprise them;
We'll drop the big one and pulverize them.

Now Asia's crowded
And Europe's too old.
Africa's far too hot,
And Canada's too cold.
And South America stole our name.
Let's drop the big one; there'll be no one left to blame us.

We'll save Australia;
Don't want to hurt no kangaroo.
We'll build an all-American amusement park there;
They've got surfing, too.

Well, boom goes London,
And boom Paris.
More room for you
And more room for me.
And every city the whole world round
Will just be another American town.
Oh, how peaceful it'll be;
We'll set everybody free;
You'll have Japanese kimonos, baby,
There'll be Italian shoes for me.
They all hate us anyhow,
So let's drop the big one now.
Let's drop the big one now.

[Oneaboveall]

Really Red: "Decay"

First the fuel could stop
Distribution's gone
Then the food could stop
Well, all law might be gone
(when the trucks are gone)
You better have a gun
Lots of water too
Plenty medicine
Well it could all be through
Chain reaction
Can't stop the greed
Pulling it down around our ears
Can't stop the need
Filling us all up with fear
Freeze a few old folks
Who can't pay their heating bill
Pay a few more farmers
Not to plow their fields

http://youtu.be/EzvAACd9R8Y

Interestingly, this is one of the few punk songs that mentions this kind of collapse, everyone else was focused on nuclear war at the time.

[dohboi]

And don't forget little bobby zimmerman from hibbing MN: http://val.fm/workingmans-blues-2-bob-dylan-mp3/

Well, the place I love best is a sweet memory
It's a new path that we trod
They say low wages are a reality
If we want to compete abroad

My cruel weapons have been put on the shelf
Come sit down on my knee
You are dearer to me than myself
As you yourself can see

While I'm listening to the steel rails hum
Got both eyes tight shut
Just sitting here trying to keep the [horror] from
Creeping it's way into my gut

Meet me at the bottom, don't lag behind
Bring me my boots and shoes
You can hang back or fight your best on the front line
Sing a little bit of these workingman's blues...

I'll drag 'em all down to hell and I'll stand 'em at the wall
I'll sell 'em to their enemies

I'm tryin' to feed my soul with thought
Gonna sleep off the rest of the day
Sometimes no one wants what we got
Sometimes you can't give it away

Now the place is ringed with countless foes
Some of them may be deaf and dumb
No man, no woman knows
The hour that sorrow will come

In the dark I hear the night birds call
I can feel a lover's breath
I sleep in the kitchen with my feet in the hall
Sleep is like a temporary death...

Well, they burned my barn and they stole my horse
I can't save a dime
I got to be careful, I don't want to be forced
Into a life of continual crime

I can see for myself that the sun is sinking
How I wish you were here to see
Tell me now, am I wrong in thinking
That you have forgotten me?

Now they worry and they hurry and they fuss and they fret
They waste your nights and days
Them I will forget
But you I'll remember always...

All across the peaceful sacred fields
They will lay you low
They'll break your horns and slash you with steel
I say it so it must be so

Now I'm down on my luck and I'm black and blue
Gonna give you another chance
I'm all alone and I'm expecting you
To lead me off in a cheerful dance

I got a brand new suit and a brand new wife
I can live on rice and beans
Some people never worked a day in their life
Don't know what work even means

Meet me at the bottom, don't lag behind
Bring me my boots and shoes
You can hang back or fight your best on the front line
Sing a little bit of these workingman's blues...

[Perfector]

All good songs. But I really like "Dreamworld" by Midnight Oil, late 80s. More about overdevelopment, but the chorus is very powerful and relevant.

"Your dreamworld is just about to end. Your dreamworld will fall."