Bedtime for Democracy


  East Bay Ray- Guitars

  Klaus Flouride- Bass

  D.H. Peligro- Drums

  Jello Biafra- Vocals

  

  Virus 50 Alternative Tentacles 

  1986

  Hop with the Jet Set


I say, come on!

To pleasure unknown

Where we fly to when we are all bored

C'mon for the ride

And hop with the jet set tonight



We'll sun ourselves red down in Montego Bay

Hotel-hired guards keep the natives away



We wanna save the whales

We'll go watch them feed,

Buzz around them in boats

'Til they won't breed

Just here for the ride

Then we hop wit the jet set tonight



check out them Indians' ancestral art

Some of that would look cute up on our walls

Yeah, suit it just fine

When you hop with the jet set tonight



We'll hire out some poachers to go steel their dolls

Who cares if they're sacred-they look awful cute



National Geographic found a stone age tribe

Let's feed them their first hot dogs on film

Won't that be a prize

To show the jet set tonight



"Aren't they cute, aren't they pure..."

Muse subscribers back home

Next weekend the junta exterminates them



Back home by the sea at our outdoor cafe

Our chameleon tongues catch the flies in the air














Dear Abby

Dear Abby,

Got a problem. I'm a decent, underpaid, hardworking county coroner. It's important that my family eat meat at least three times a week. But we just can't afford to with the prices the way they are. so I bring home some choice cuts from my autopsy subjects. Just mix in the Tuna Helper...and ta-da!

The whole family thinks my new meals are delicious. They ask me what's my secret. Abby, I think they're getting suspicious. My smart-ass 8-year-old keeps asking, "Where's all the meat? The red dye #2 kind that's kept in the fridge."

If they find out the truth I don't think they'll understand. Abby, what do I tell my family?

DEAR REAGANOMICS VICTIM: Consult your clergyman. Make sure the body's blessed and everything should be just fine.

  










Rambozo the Clown




Got a deadly toy

To brainwash your boy



An egocentric muscle thug

KIcks butt on screen like a brat outa hell

Bullshitter in the Indochina shop

Pull the string in his back, we win the war



That we never should have started at all



A cabbage patch terrorist to call our own

Who rewrites history with a machine gun

Don't think about it-KILL IT

That's what we teach your child



CHORUS

AMBOZO

RAMBOZO

RAMBOZO the Clown



To draft age kids

It sure looks like fun...

"Kill 'em all

and let God sort 'em out."



Like video games-no mess

Just fuel for a mass lapse of common sense

You can be Don Quixote

We'll dice you with our windmill blades



Brawn over brain

Means a happy ending

G.I. Joe in the cereal bowl

Grey shrapnel-flavored chewing gum

Mass murder ain't just painless

Now we've made it cute



CHORUS



War is sexy

War is fun

Iron Ego

Red Dawn



Be a wolverine. You'll rule the hills

JUst get some guns and Cheerios

Any kid can conquer Libya

Just steal a fighter plane



Look who came home in a wheelchair

V.A. Hospital, they don't care

"We're the machine

You're just a tool."

Who fell for the myth of Rambozo the Clown



"Hey Rocky! Watch me pull a massacre out of my pants."

"Again?"

















Fleshdunce




We're world industry's thoughtlords

The entertainment wing

We keep you all in line



By fixing your free will

Surround you with pop fantasies

Just slightly out of reach

To soften all the blows

Of your forced daily routine



We strip-mine your underground culture

Take the bite out and rinse it clean

Give ourselves credit for creating it

Then sell it back to you

At twice the price



Our pool of talent vampires

Has blown into your town

To dazzle, sign and milk you

All strictly on our own terms



You think you've got a lot to say

We'll change that real soon

You're not a person anymore

We've made you a cartoon



By the time we're through remolding you

You won't even recognize your face

There's no end to the eager beavers

Drawn the moths to our Babylon's mirage



Conveyor belt of fleshdunce

They all want to do the fleshdunce

Conveyor belt of fleshdunce

Who all want to do the fleshdance



  The Great Wall



Great Wall of China

It's so big it's seen from outer space

Put there to keep starving neighbors

Locked outside the gates



What's changed today?

Empires hoard more than they need

And peasant threaten our comfort



We'll build a Great Wall around our power

Build a Great Wall around our pownr



Bankrupt L.A.'s streetcar line

So people pay more to drive

Plant strategic freeways

To divide neighborhoods by color lines



We'd rather pay for riot squds

Than pump your ghetto back  to life

We let your schools decay on purpose



To build a Great Wall around our power

Another Great Wall around our power



Warlords in grey suits

Take a different route to work each day

Second-hand green berets

For the companies' private armies.

We'll take all your gold

BUt won't teach reading or feed your poor

The League of Gentleman

Would rather feed guns to puppet dictators



There's too many people in your world

And refugees are expensive

When they trickled down onto our soil

We hunt them and arrest them

Classify them insane

And put them back on the next plane

To the waiting arms

Of the same death squads they fled



We've built a Great Wall around our power

Economic Great Wall around our power

Worldwide Great Wall around our power



Give us your poor,

Your tired and your weak

We'll send 'em right back

To their certain death



  Shrink



If only people could shrink

Our world wouldn't be so overcrowded

Bring ourselves down to size

There'd be so much more food to go 'round



Why don't we build a machine

With all the know-how of the industries

We put a man on the moon

ON earth we'll need more room to breathe real soon

Oh........



Drink your vaccine and let's shrink

And bring your poodle so it doesn't eat us

The roads will be so wide

No traffic jams when we're half a foot tall



Bring what you need down here

We'll shrink it all by microwave

Don't wanna die like dinosaurs

We'll have enough resources to go round

Oh........



So now you've made the big shrink

Meanwhile we'll keep acting big

We well-bred beautiful people

Who says we have to go too?



Cops and Mason businessmen

Were exempted from the ovens

As if you weren't already.

the rest of you are all our termites now

Oh........










Triumph of the Swill

"We came home and found our son lying dead on his bed of a gun-shot wound. He had his headphones on, and there was an Ozzy record on the turn table. So we called our lawyer."

Life can only get better

All you need to do is fall in love

Everyone else has fun but you

Buy that fun you'll fit in too



Dance your problems away

GOVERNMENT MUSIC

Cheap escape to that mind-control beat

GOVERNMENT MUSIC

Mellow out-Life's too hard

You don't even want to think



See the macho cock-rock metal heroes

Vomit fire out of their big mouts

Shake your fists obediently

Make Leni Riefenstahl real proud



See the Aryan bozo with the red guitar

Parachute on the White House lawn

Gonna bomb the commies with his air guitar

So dumb he can't drive 55



Like Bing Crosby before them

GOVERNMENT MUSIC

Too idiotic to be real

GOVERNMENT MUSIC

You want it loud?

We'll make sure it goes nowhere

So you won't get ideas



CHORUS

Triumph of the swill

Triumph of the swill

Triumph of the swill

Triumph of the swill



Music is banned in Khomeini's Iran

On the grounds that it stimulates the brain

We've done him one better in the land of coke and honey

Using music to people's brains to sleep



Ever wonder why commercial radio's so bad?

It's cause someone upstairs wants it that way

If the Doors or John Lennon were getting started now

The industry wouldn't sign 'em in a million years



So what do we get

GOVERNMENT MUSIC

Christian censorship and taxed blank tapes

Shoppers strung out on our false hopes

Will flock to obey



CHORUS










Macho Insecurity



Name one thing on earth lower than a tough guy

Who talks with his fists instead of using his head

Who beats the shit out of anything it can't understand

Behind the muscle mask is a scared little boy



CHORUS

Called macho insecurity

Macho insecurity

Macho insecurity

'Cause you can't stand yourself



Got a bitch with me?

Why won't you say it to my face?

It's so easy to mouth of to others

But where's your proof?

Maybe we can talk if you'd just drop your act

Nothing's ever solved by making childish threats



CHORUS



Why do you want people to be so afraid of you?

Why are you so scared of anything that's different?

No one's ever there when you need friends

You wonder why...

It's 'cause you take yourself so seriously

But being such a clown

gives the rest of us the right to laugh

At your macho insecurity

'Cause you can't stand yourself











Cesspools in Eden


(Jello Biafra/Dead Kennedys)



Poison is bubbling

Beneath your dreamhome

Buried there years before



Kid runs in crying

From playing in the garden

"Mommy, I burned my hands!"



"What's making our eyes so itchy?"

"Don't rub 'em-they'll swell up."



Oh...Oh Oh Oh

It's the big waste dump

Oh, yeah



We built your ticky-tacky houses

On landfill soil

To cover up a gift

We left you years before



Of toxic chemicals

And leaking gas

Just dig a little while,

You'll find our acid baths



Cesspools

In Eden

Oozing away...



Groundwater's poisoned

Air stings like hell

The lines for doctors growing long




Over martinis

The company laughs

"We don't owe you one damn thing."



But what about all these fainting spells?

How'd you like a lick

From my open sores



And oh....oh oh oh-


Why are our babies stillborn?



A storage tank's leaking

It's about to explode

Why evacuate

When you can watch the fun



Nothing happens here

Get out the lawn chairs

We'll drink pink lemonade

And watch Martinez burn



Cesspools

In Eden

Oozing away

Cesspools in Eden

Leak by the day



The land we sold you

Is right atop our acid pits

We fill them by the truckload

In the dead of night



There's thousands more toxic

Tips of the iceberg

We pay a little bribe

Or we just don't report them



And see what you get-

Cesspools

In Eden

In Eden

No accident-

Just a little of our greed-fueled negligence



So you've found the proof why

Your cancer rate's shot up

But whatcha gonna do

When we've got all the cards



Times Beach, Rocky Flats,

Love Canal and Bhopal

Merry Christmas, hostages

From the folks who care



Cesspools in Eden

Oozing away

Cesspools in Eden

Leak by the day

Cesspools in Eden

Have a nice day










One-Way Ticket to Pluto



Countdown!

Get ready for the blast off!

And don't forget the hype!

We're going into space.



Distinguihed scientists

A pesky senator

And monkey turds leaking from the lab

All brought to us play-by-play by Howard Cosell



You're going where no man has gone before

Don't ask us where that is-we have no idea

You’re chosen for this great mission

Because we owe you some favors

And besides you're bright

A little too bright



Step one:

nator, your vomit,

It's time to analyze it

For the folks back home



Open the hatch, launch the war satellite

That the commies aren't supposed to know about

Our real challenge is to keep it a secret

From the press back home



You're going where no man has gone before

Don't ask us where that is-we have no idea



You're chosen for this great mission

Because you're hearty and strong

and make a lot of fuss

Especially around us

We like you better when you're far away



Have you noticed?

You're gong the wrong direction.

We have.



But that's your problem.

We planned it that way

We had to dispose of all of you so

We can spoil the final frontier

How dare you question our Star Wars plans

For the farce that they are?



You're going where no man has gone before

For rocking the boat

In our temple of doom



You're on a one-way ticket to Pluto

We wash our hands

Of you and your lost Ark

Don't forget to write...

NO NO NO NO NO

NO NO NO NO NO

NO NO NO NO NO

NO....











Gone with My Wind



Wake up! Get down here quick!

the president's had too much to drink

His days of power are about gone

He's been talking to paintings in the hall



He says, "I'm finished, so what the hell?

My life is ruined, what matters now?

I've always itched for that last great thrill...

If I die all of you should too."



CHORUS

Gone with my wind

Out with a bang

I'm gonna end it all right now

Gone with my wind

Out with a bang

You're coming with me, oh wow



My bombs will rain down on D.C.

We'll nuke our enemies while they're asleep

We'll be safe in the ground below

And laugh and drink till the cows come home



So c'mon John, whadya say?

It's been dancing in my head for years

What'll happen if I push this button...

Let's start World War III for fun



CHORUS



Mr. President, just sit down

We should talk a little while, I'll pour another round

What about your memoirs' TV rights?


Sit tight--and watch the fire...




Let go of me. Do you think I'm mad?

To tell the truth, sir, I'd rather not say

Just keep your paws inside your pockets

And planet earth will be OK.



But you reached for the button anyhow

I had no choice but to knock you out

That's just last night's bump on your head

On to the next crisis, it's another day



CHORUS










A Commercial

Have we got a telethon for you coming soon on MTV! A rockin' bankroll extravaganza featuring all your vigilante rock stars! Sammy Hagar...Sylvester Stallone...Clint Eastwood. It's so important we've even exhumed the bodies of Lynyrd Skynyrd! This ain't no sissy concert to raise food for the needy; this concerts whipped up the American way to raise money for guns for the greedy! So stay tuned and dig in those heels for...USA FOR SOUTH AFRICA!

It's USA for South Africa 'cause those poor, sex-starved riot battalions need more machine guns, more tear gas, more nerve gas, more electric fences for those prison camps they call "homelands." And who's going to give it to them? WE ARE! Every one of us! Everytime we go to the bank. Everytime we buy food at Theftway. Or those fancy chrome wheels for your hotcar. It's USA FOR SOUTH AFRICA!

Don't delay! Apartheid is a BIG business! What would these American ladies do without those diamonds? You heard the White House...DON'T MISS IT! Have you're rich parents' money ready, world hunger's gone forever once your check's in the mail when MTV and the rock and racism connection bring you live, from Sun City, USA FOR SOUTH AFRIA!

Anarchy for Sale

Step right up folks

Anarchy for sale!

T-shirts only 10 dollars

Badges only 3.50

I nicked the design, never asked the band

I never listen to them either

Buy buy buy from Circle A

Like hula hoops, it's a disposable craze

Another fast-food fad to throw away

CHORUS

Get your anarchy for sale

Anarchy for sale

Sheep unite!

Get your cuddly boots and studs

Be sure to rebel in proper style

Rebel along the paths we pick

Out of fear of peer pressure we create

Hey you!-

Get those flyers off my wall

No commie peace shit in my boutique

No one here cares what that all means

CHORUS

Our town sucks

Our scene rules

To belong you must buy into it

So we sold you metal spike bracelets....

C'mon let's see a good fight

CHORUS

Chickenshit Conformist

Punk's not dead

It just deserves to die

When it becomes another stale cartoon

A close-minded, self-centered social club

Ideas don't matter, it's who you know

If the music's gotten boring

It's because of the people

Who want everyone to sound the same

Who drive bright people out

Of our so-called scene

'Til all that's left

Is just a meaningless fad

Hardcore formulas are dogshit

Change and caring are what's real

Is this a state of mind

Or just another label

The joy and hope of an alternative

Have become its own cliche

A hairstyle's not a lifestyle

Imagine Sid Vicious at 35

Who needs a scene

Scared to love and to feel

Judging everythng

By loud fast rules appeal

Who played last night?

"I don't know, I forgot.

But diving off the stage

Was a lot of fun."

CHORUS

So eager to please

Peer pressure decrees

So eager to please

Peer pressure decrees

Make the same old mistakes

Again and again,

Chickenshit conformist

Like your parents

What's ripped us apart even more than drugs

Are the thieves and the goddamn liars

Flipping people off when they share their stuff

When someone falls are there any friends?

Harder core than thou for a year or two

Then it's time to get a real job

Others stay home, it's no fun to go out

When the gigs are wrecked by gangs and thugs

When the thugs form bands, look who gets record deals

From New York metal labels looking to scam

Who sign the most racist queerbashing bands they can find

To make a buck revving kids up for war

Walk tall, act small

Only as tough as gang approval

Unity is bullshit

When it's under someone's fat boot

Where's the common cause

Too many factions

Safely sulk in their shells

Agree with us on everything

Or we won't help with anythng

That kind of attitude

JUst makes a split grow wider

Guess who's laughing while the world explodes

When we're all crybabies

Who fight best among ouselves

CHORUS

That farty old rock and roll attitude's back

"It's competition, man, we wanna break big."

Who needs friends when the money's good

That's right, the '70s are back.

Cock-rock metal's like a bad laxative

It just don't move me, ya know?

The music's OK when there's more ideas than solos

Do we rally need the attitude too?

Shedding thin skin too quickly

As a fan it disappoints me

Same old stupid sexist lyrics

Or is Satan all you can think of?

Crossover is just another word

For lack of ideas

Maybe what we need

Are more trolls under the bridge

Wil the metalheads finally learn something-

Or will the punks throw away their education?

No one's ever the best

Once they believe their own press

"Maturing" don't mean rehashing

Mistakes of the past

CHORUS

The more things change

The more they stay the same

We can't grow

When we won't criticize ourselves

The '60s weren't all failure

It's the '70s that stunk

As the clock ticks we dig the same hole

Music scenes ain't real life

They won't get rid of the bomb

Won't eliminate rape

Or bring down the banks

Any kind of real change

Takes more time and work

Than changing channels on a TV set

CHORUS

Where Do Ya Draw the Line

Seems like the more I think I know

The more I find I don't

Every answer opens up so many questions

anarchy sounds good to me

Then someone asks, "Who'd fix the sewers?"

"Would the rednecks just play king

Of the neighborhood?"

How many liberators

Really want to be dictators

Every theory has its holes

When real life steps in

So how do we feed

And make room for

All the people crowded on our earth

And transfer all that wealth

>From the rich to those who need it

CHORUS

Where do ya draw the line

I'm not telling you

I'm asking you

Ever notice hard line radicals

Can go on start trips too

Where no one's pure and right

Except themselves

"I'm cleansed of the system."

('Cept when my amp needs electric power)

Or-"The Party Line says no.

Feminists can't wear fishnets."

You wanna help stop war?

Well, we reject your application

You crack too many jokes

And you eat meat

What better way to turn people off

Than to twist ideas for change

Into one more church

That forgets we're all human beings

Where do ya draw the line?

In Toronto someone blew up

A cruise missile warhead plant

10 slightly hurt, 4 million dollars damage

Why not destroy private property

When it's used against you and me

Is that violence

Or self-defence

You tell me

CHORUS

Potshot Heard Round the World

(Jello Biafra/East Bay Ray)

Hey!

Yo!

We're the United States Marines

We know you've all been killing each other

For at least two thousand years

But we're here now

To protect the family

Of Christian heroin warlords

Most friendly to the West

So you knock off this fighting

Or we'll tell Mom

Ever notice news

Is taged like TV wrestling shows

With Reagans and Khaddafis cast

As cartoon villains and heroes

Or those wildlife "documentaries"

Where a lion from a zoo

Kills a deer tied down ahead of time

At the perfect camera angle

When lemmings balk at dying for Disney

They're just hurled off the cliff...

We are gathered here today

To take photos of the President

Pretending to mourn these brave young me

Who came home from Beirut

Gift-wrapped in body bags-

A truck bomb blew them to bits

We knew they were sitting ducks

We sacrificed 'em, Aztec style

So we could use their dead meat

To cook up war fever back home

So make sure you take lots of pictures

And slant your news our way

Just like in Wild Kingdom

We first tied down the prey

We want people boiling for revenge

In their living rooms

So we can go play shoot-em-up

Anywhere we choose

And our backers can cash in

Without the public asking questions

D.M.S.O.

(Jello Biafra/Dead Kennedys)

Crypto

Wonder

Drug

In vogue

Some people say

It cures arthritis

Maybe that's why

It keeps getting banned

It's absorbed

Directly through the skin

Mix it with lemon juice

Touch your fingertips

You'll taste the lemon

The police

Started a riot

Down at the courthouse

Again

Running amok

Spilling blood

Bashing heads

I do my part

Behind the lines

Swabbing door handles of cop cars

With D.M.S.O.

Mixed with L.S.D.....

Lie Detector

(Jello Biafra/East Bay Ray)

We have reviewed your yellow form

Congratulations!

we find you qualified

You have just the right capacity

For putting up with our nonsense

There's just one thing you've got to prove

We know how you must be dishonest and lazy

If you're so desperate

You actually want to work at this place

CHORUS

You must be guilty (lie detector)

Guilty (lie detector)

Guilty 'til you're proven innocent

These days

Blood pressure clamps around your arms

Now don't get nervous when we yell in your face

We know you steal-

Just who do you screw?

With what?!

With who?!?

Aren't you a Christian?!?!?

The polygraph-don't make it move

One little twitch, the anvil drops on you

Don't matter if you told the truth

We want your facial egg for our file

CHORUS

Guilty-'til proven innocent

Guilty-It says so on your face

Guilty-When you try to find a place to live or a job that pays

Guilty-Whe you file a complaint against the cop that kicked

your face last night

Guilty-It says so on page 3

Guilty-Who'd think a guy like me would plant drugs in your car

Break in your house while you're asleep

Open your mouth, bet your ass you're watched

And it's your word against ours...

Yeah, just because we're hiring you

That don't mean we trust you at all

YOu'll have to take a test like this

Once or twice EVERY week

We know machines, they make mistakes

Yeah, it's your word against our dead black box

The machine is always right

'Cause we know how it makes you feel so small

Because you're guilty (lie detector)

'Til you're proven innocent these days

No one's innocent these days

'Cause when you're innocent it just don't pay

please submit any additions or corrections to

a mail link is on the home page...