Robert Wyatt - the age of self, 1985

 

"the targets he has chosen are slippery, ambiguous ones; the treacherous duplicity of political language, the lies that democracy depends on, the so-called plurality of thought that Western culture contains and the infectious spread of cultural amnesia. Behind this array of inter-related topics lurks the spirit of Marxist writer Noam Chomsky, that most mischievous disseminator of Western capitalist mores and guiding light in Wyatt's current way of seeing." 

"They say the working class is dead, we're all consumers now

They say that we have moved ahead – we're all just people now

There's people doing 'frightfully well' there's others on the shelf

But never mind the second kind this is the age of self

And it seems to me if we forget our roots and where we stand

The movement will disintegrate like castles built on sand

They say we need new images to help our movement grow

They say that life is broader based as if we didn't know

While Martin Jacques and Robert Maxwell play with printer's ink

The workers 'round the world still die for Rio Tinto zinc

And it seems to me if we forget our roots and where we stand

The movement will disintegrate like castles built on sand

Castles built on sand"