Album Cover Dutiful Servants And Political Masters

Dutiful Servants And Political Masters

Chumbawamba

3

One, two, one, two, three, four

Things were rather different in great grandfather's day

He just put a chain around their ankles and made them work for no pay

He took everything they owned and yet still demanded more

He did a bloody good job in taming the poor

Now I'm rather more subtle, I say, I'll tell you what I will do

I'll do everything I can to try and help you

And you'll be helping me, I say, and I'll see that you're alright

You can have a place of your own, you can even pretend to be white

And you won't have to worry, I'll have a quiet word with your mates

Oh they'll be alright, they'll have enough on their plate

I'll put a bit in their mouths, you just pull hard on the reins

They'll do anything for you and they won't complain

You'll be so much better off, I say, you can share my paradise

Just sign my piece of paper and I'll organize your life

And it never fails, it does the trick, it works every time

So me and my dear wife and the family's doing fine

Great granddad got his dukedom when slavery was abolished

Dear old dad became a viscount when the Empire was finished

But times have changed for the better with freedom of choice

We're a thousand times richer, QED His Master's Voice

A dog stares into a gramophone trumpet, waits for its call to action

Mute and obedient, standing to attention

Look a little closer, the dog is a woman

She's working under a system that she can't understand

Trapped inside a world of labor and heat

So that she and her children will be able to eat

The trumpet is patriarchy, it's old and fixed

Where poor men are lured by desire to be rich

Where the limited power is still given to men

Where development aid is so wastefully spent

Where western education enforces this crap

Where women work in the open, yet live in a trap

There's one solution, and this is it

The dog leaps on the gramophone and has a shit