Last Scream of the Missing Neighbors

Joe Kiethley- Guitars, Vocals

Brian Goble- Bass, Vocals

Jon Card- Drums, Vocals

Chris Prohom- Guitars, Vocals

Jello Biafra- Vocals

Virus 78 Alternative Tentacles

1989

That's Progress

Give me an "M"-M!

Give me an "A"-A!

Give me a "U"-U!

Give me an "L"-L!

What’s that spell?-Mall

What’s that spell?- Shopping Mall

'Scuse me

Pardon my greed-

You're evicted, time to leave

Don't matter if your family's lived here 30 years

We're tripling the rent

Time's up, the sheriff's here

Too bad for you if you freeze out in the street

The croissant and cookie palace

Downstairs will symbolize

The old neighborhood whose soul has slowly died

Been gentrified

CHORUS

That's progress

Doesn't progress make you feel good inside?

Cameras catch you runnin' red lights

Schoolrooms with no windows

Computer picks your carreer at age 15

Universal Price Code I.D.'s

With the stripe the laser reads

And records where you've been, when you're sick

And what you eat

For every spy in government

There's 50 private eyes

Who round up dirt on you to keep on file

Then sell the file

CHORUS

Progress don't make me feel so good inside

You can't live here

We won't hire you

We know all the nasty things you do

Bought a dossier on your whole life

Clear back to the pranks you did in school at age 5

There's millions on file at the touch of a button

Your boss or your landlord will love our choice cuts of gossip

If it's lies, what can you do?

'Cos it costs too much to sue

The last person who'll ever see your file is you

Had enough, I moved back home

To the mountains where I belong

But ski resorts have tamed the wild west

The hills we used to roam

Now they're privately owned

And scarred with cheezy suburbs and cement

The `Tracts For Sale' sign promises

`Deer in your back yard'

If the deer somehow get past the fences and guards

And the industrial `park'

CHORUS

That's progress

Looks like I'll have to move to Yellowknife

Progress-bleah!

Your idea of progress wrecks too many lives

Attack of the Peacekeepers

Army ads looked cool-I signed right up

Besides, it was the only way could find a job

"Great place to start" and see the world

Womanize at discos

And fake going nuts

To scam infirmary drugs

So send in the clowns

The NATO circus is here to protect you

Your choice must be ours

Yankee corruption

Or the big bad Soviet threat

Don't you feel secure

Sending our Top Guns guard your sky

Flying their fighter planes upside down

Stoned out of their minds

For a real hot time

How 'bout an air show crash?

Or a G.I. riding a stolen tank

Through downtown Manhattan

And off the riverbank

Where he drowns

Fall in with the clowns

Remember-

NATO is here to protect you

With nuclear bombs

That come to visit

And decided to stay

CHORUS

Attack!

Of the peacekeepers

Attack!

The charge of the joke brigade

In charge

We can blow up the world

More times than you

We'll show 'em

With radioactive subs

W'ell show 'em

We'll show 'em

With missiles in your back yard

Guarded

By soldiers

On acid during night watch

And generals who care only

For fat pensions and bribes

If that don't scare the commies nothing will

Cept maybe our Bradley tanks tripping over themselves

Both powers have one goal in common

to keep Germany divided

Never strong enough to start another world war

Occupied by the clowns

Is it really you NATO is here to protect?

With Berlin type walls

When they came to visit

We all decided to stay

CHORUS

Wish I was in El Salvador

Used to be in a gang

'Till I beat a kid half dead

In a video arcade

Judge gave me a choice: Jail or the Marines

Best time I ever had was being an MP

Aw yeh

I wish I was down in El Salvador

Where I could jerk off with my gun

And kill the poor

More gang busts after I'm discharged

Got on offer frome police

Surprise! WE'll wipe your record clean

If you'll become one of us

You've got just the skills we need

For the government's official gang

Robothug Riot Squad

Already I want more

Aw yeh,

I wish I was down in El Salvador

We're just countin' days

'Til we can do it up here

Well, Officer Friendly-

What does Elmer the Safety Elephoant

Have to say about this...?

Well, good buddy

I''ll bet he says you can't do this ARGH!

Or this ARGH!

Or even this ARGH!

"His toy gun looked real

I had to defend myself..."

I'm always lookin' for excuses

To defend myself

People are storming out into the streets

People are poouring out into the streets

They hate me, they hate me

I just might have to defend myself

NOW!

It's party time...

I look at you and smolder

With my nightstick and my shield

Little kids throw rocks at me

Their moms call me a pig

Commander says I gotta hold the line

'Til the TV cameras leave

Then we'll fire away, make my day

Just like good ol' Kent State

Why wait!

It'll be like I was down in El Salvador

Gonna jerk off with my gun

and kill the poor

Be a big man with my gun

And kill the poor

Jerk off with my gun

I think I'm gonna kum

Then I’ll kiss my gun good night

And put her under my pillow

Power Is Boring

(Jello Biafra/J. Keithley)

Believe me, if I were dicator

You know what I'd do?!?!?

Come to think of it,

There's a problem there

For aspiring tyrants like me and you...

Ever wonder what it'd really be like

To be your own dicator

Might be its own kind of prison

Of total fear

Can't make love or go anywhere

Without bodyguards in your hair

Never know which trusted friend

Has plans to blow you away

3,000 pairs of shoes

No one to talk to

'Nuff guns to kill everyone you own

The masses act so loyal

Yet you can't sleep in the same place twice

I wouldn't want to be a Noriega or Khadafi

Would you?

CHORUS

Power is boring

And ya know, I wonder how

The downtown crowd can stand themselves

Look sharp

Play to win

Through intimidation

That person at the next desk

Ain't your friend

He's your competitor

The only way to get promoted first

Is to get HIM first

Or else

Hi ho whadya know

They all got the same plan for you

Where do these people go

Between their daily meals of work

Too burnt and stressed

To even think of how to spend the money

No one to show it to

But people just like me-AGH!

CHORUS

Hot damn, we're the headliners at last

Gonna show this scene a thing or two

Play games and help our friends

NOw the phone rings all the time

It's all you fault

"You've been crowned king

Of what you used to warn us about"

Why play that game at all?

The ones who want the power THAT bad

Are missing something in their lives

Being scared of my friends

In ajunta, scene or business world

Is the most miserable existance

I could think of on earth

Full Metal Jackoff

Around our nation's capital

There's a freeway 8 lanes wide

White concrete ringed around the city

For those who want inside

Get on get off

Ignore everything to the sides

In your midst I drive

While homeboys in the back of the van make drugs

Wanna hide something like a ccrack lab

Just put it in plain sight

Only stop to refuel and unload

More poison to tear more lives apart

Gang wars like never before

Better lock your doors, buy some guns

And pray (prey?) for martial law

On the Washington D.C. Beltway

Around and around I go

In the black van with no windows

And a chimney puffing smoke

Bloody headlines in the news each day

Drug "crisis" everywhere

So much comes in so easy

It's as though someone wants it there

It would be a little obvious

To fence off all the slums

Hand out machine guns

to the poor in the projects

And watch 'em kill each other off

A more subtle genocide is when

The only hope for the young

Is to join the Army and slowly die

Wall Street or Crack Dealer Avenue

The last roads left to the American Dream

Wall Street or Crack Dealer Avenue

Only one road leads to this neighborhood

Little kids wanna sell drugs when they grow up

The folks might get just a little upset

If they knew where that dope comes from

Froom Columbia to the Contras

To our Air Force bases, where we trade it for guns

The moral equivilent of a serial killer

And his CIA friends

Call the shots from the White House

But now that we own the media too

Those stories just aren't run

On the Washington D.C. Beltway, 'round and 'round I go

In a black van with no windows, and a chimney puffing smoke

Some gang that ran smack in Viet Nam

Ain't got no reason to fear

Just get a Vice President so dumb

The crook at the top never gets impeached

That sure was easy wasn't it?

More crack-more panic-moe cops-more jails

You see emergency-total war

You see a black face-you see a crackhead

You see a black face-you see Willie Horton with a knife

You see Willie Horton with a knife

You see one Willie Horton you've seen them all

They're everywhere, I know

You asked for it, you've got it

Drug suspects have no rights at all

Property seized and sold before trial

Labor camps-on American soil?!?

Neo-Nazi bootboys

That the cops never seem to arrest

Prowl neighborhoods with baseball bats

Why now? Why do they get so much press...?

Mein Kampf-the mini series

Ollie North-"patriotic" hero

The leader for tomorrow is yours today

Finally gotcha psyched for a police state

On the Washington D.C. Beltway

Around and around I go

In a black van with no windows

And a chimney puffing smoke

My van's a mobile oven now

That burns the bodies you never see

Just like in Chile or Guatemala

People just seem to disappear

Just like Rome

We fell asleep when we got spoiled

Ignore human rights in the rest of the world

Ya might just lose your own

As the noose of narco-militarism

Tightens 'round your necks

We worry about burning flags

And pee in jars at work

To keep our jobs

But if someone came for you one night

And dragged you away

do you really think your neighbors

Would even care....

Ollie for president, he’ll get things done!!!

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