Overriding Volunteer

Finley Quaye

While bodies burn, the children learn

How the money's earned, with growing concern

In the gallery, three distinguished strangers

Who had found there way home

Ricochet and muzzle flash

Superfluous, luxurious,

Commodities, communities

Democracies, security



They don't want your money

Overriding volunteer

They don't think you're funny at all.

Overriding volunteer



Lindesfarne and Banochburn

Inadequacy, inaccuracies

Heritage, more discoveries

While the fishermen sail the seas

Chemicals, minerals, culture and war,

Is that all this place is good for

Hundreds of years, unsettled scores

Rivalry and bribery



They don't want your money

Overriding volunteer

They don't think you're funny at all.

Overriding volunteer



Initiative on the killing floor

Each man is there for the next man

That's the horror and the terror of war

And your overriding volunteer

Inter-unit strife, think about your wife

Another mission rehearsal, so you know the procedure.

The rotor wash, N.C.O., incursion and extraction.

Numbing the population, evacuees, contingency..



They don't want your money

Overriding volunteer

They don't think you're funny at all.

Overriding volunteer



Movie reels on a photo slide

In a mountainside where the warlords hide

Send them to the sky

Send them to the sea

Spread them all over the land

The slaves and the gold and the ivory

The artist cry, as the good ones die

Charities and the refugees

The monetary man with a momentary plan



They don't want your money

Overriding volunteer

They don't think you're funny at all.

Overriding volunteer