This has proved to be an unexpected success, given its duration and complex structure. It is a track from our 37th album, Media Morte In Vita Sumus. It is a critique of popular commercial media services (print, on-line, radio and television) whose lurid desire for wars, disasters, catastrophes and human misery as a means to increase sales and audience figures serves to indicate the deplorable level to which such agencies will sink in order to satisfy their vile and loathsome obsessions.
Do you believe life is passing you by?
Would you forgive me for asking you why?
You cry and moan in your self pity and sit alone listening to me.
Step this way and come inside for the show’s about to start.
Watch me take this little girl and blow her head apart!
Since LSD will surely be your passport to the skies,
with Ecstasy I think you’ll see your trust in us is wise.
We have Buddha, we have Jesus, we have gods of every kind,
and pharmaceuticals to please as we annihilate your mind.
Roll up! Roll up! Roll up! Be ready to go – come and see the show!
We put Nutrasweet in all you eat, in every shopping mall,
with designer drinks that no-one thinks will ever kill them all.
We have squatters and guerrillas, revolutions by the score;
we have plotters, we have killers and a thermo-nuclear war!
I can promise you a thrill as we home in for the kill
but form a queue, please be still, while I open up the till.
Roll up! Roll up! Roll up! Step this way – enjoy yourself today!
It’s a red nose for hilarity, a charity of cheer;
let’s laugh at all barbarity – we wish you were here.
When a million men are gone again, with starving sons galore,
while the News At Ten is on again – those viewing figures soar.
We have tortured tribes from Africa, Cambodians by the score,
and when they lose a limb or two, I know you’ll scream for more.
Roll up! Roll up! Roll up! Clap your hands – let’s hear it for the bands!
As the extrinsic history of a television discourse adopts a new generic form, the hero becomes another cultural artefact whose self referential devices provide a process of construction of social realities and the imposition of these realities upon other members of the communication scheme – the syntagmatical rules of combination adrift on a cathode sea of consumer forces.
There’s an anarchist who’ll not be missed: he died, I’m sad to say;
but a communist who’s on our list, she’s on your screen today!
We know you all love torture, blood and death give you a thrill;
so marvel how they caught her as you zoom in for the kill.
It’s amazing how disgraceful all injustices can be;
so sit back and note how tasteful is our documentary.
Roll up! Roll up! Roll up! We know you’re here – when you clap and cheer!
We have lots of homeless destitutes and spastics in a queue
and a ward of AIDS struck prostitutes all dying, just for you.
We’ve a fourteen year old victim of a brutal, savage rape;
since you ask me why we picked him,
well, we have his screams on tape.
We have junkies in a loony bin and psychos by the score.
This is of course where you begin to shout ‘encore, encore’!
Roll up! Roll up! Roll up! Clap your hands – let’s hear it for the bands!
We have escapees who cry with ease, all from Afghanistan;
a widower from Bosnia, an orphan from Iran;
we have refugees and internees from China and Vietnam;
(you can shed a tear upon your knees, as if you give a damn),
and a blinded boy from Belfast who’s forgotten how to smile,
all of whom will keep you entertained for a while.
Roll up! Roll up! Roll up! Bare your soul – this is rock and roll!
Now you have seen what can happen to you,
can I assume that you know what to do?
You have your life, don’t throw it away;
it’s not too late – you can start today.
This anodyne negates the investigation of all perspectives within the consensual narrative; intellectual awareness is thus negated by the cathode ray tyranny of this hermeneutic hegemony.
Andy Martin – Vocals, Hammond Organ, Piano, Korg M1, ARP 2600.
Fabian Fritze – Bass Guitar.
Colin Murrell – Vibraphone, Drums.
Text & Music – Andy Martin.
Donations to our finances can be made ([email protected]) if you wish to support our future work.
In 2016 we released our 30th album (Fast – Clean – Cheap) and with it an era passed. We realised it is neither necessary nor desirable to continue to issue our work on compact discs. The process is expensive and time consuming (pressing CDs, printing booklets and tray cards, buying jiffy bags, going to the post office – it’s so 1990s) so now Band Camp exists, an avenue is presented by which we can release our work to the public directly. Our projects will be obtainable from this address:
http://unit-united.bandcamp.com.
In addition there are currently 12 books available. These are proper books in print, not fake, ersatz ‘books’ you see advertised on the internet these days as ‘e-books’. They can be purchased from lulu.com. Type ‘A
