MONKEY SHINES  by Preacher John 16/4/99

Chimp males stick with their brothers in territorial groups
Chimp females leave their mothers to mate outside the birth tribe
Gang killings are a stock in trade of territorial wars
And there's a hierachy 'mong apes with an alpha male inside
Monkey Shines

There's blood on the streets on a Friday night the lads are out for eight pints and a fight
Don't matter who you are as long as you are 'other' and for preference on your own afraid without your brothers
You'll bite the tarmac and taste the lads shoe leather
Piss on you 'cos you were there an' you shouldn't never have
Looked at his bird
Or had that colour of skin
Or worn an earring
Monkey Shines

And this Liberation Army and that Federal Republican force are cleansing the ground of the 'other'
They got all kinds of toys 'cos they are the boys and they'll play with you 'til you break
Tanks and A.K.s, beatings and rapes, whatever it takes
Crush you 'cos you were there and you shouldn't never have
Lived here
Or prayed to that god
Or voted that way
Monkey Shines

So the bombs fall on Kosovo
Machetes and A.K.s chop, chop, chop in Rwanda
Fascists blow up kids in Brixton
East Timor's killing fields are crowded with the dead
Folk are disappearing under tryannical regimes
An' folk are being tortured can you hear the screams?
Tupac and Biggie Smalls got gunned down in their prime
An people talk up justice but all that's lyin'
And at the heart of it is this
And it won't go away

Monkey Shines
Monkey Shines ancient endless hate
Monkey Shines go on on this and through all our bloody yesterdays

There's just 1% of difference between the genes of us and chimps
Less hair bigger guns
Monkey Shines                               

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