Photographs in Empty Houses
One of 9 original songs, 1 instrumental piece, 2 covers and 2 theatre songs on my first musical cabaret album.
More details.
Des de Moor
voice, acoustic guitar, keyboards and programming
'The Same Old Game' was part of a songwriting binge in 1984/85, which displays its vintage with an oblique reference to the Bhopal disaster. The tune came to me as I was walking along the A1 at Hatfield on a very cold morning early in 1985.
Every joker's wild. This deadly game
Turns up a starving child for every dollar.
It's always been the same.
Some prizes can be found in slaughterhouses
At 90p a pound. Your right to choose.
Grand masters underground have stakes much higher:
They may be the last to lose.
Then who will be around to light the candles?
In whose misshapen eyes will shine farewells?
There are too many bodies all about us,
Too little time to ring the bells.
It may come as a surprise when clouds of poison
Contaminate the skies and foul the air,
Set fire to your eyes and leave you crying-
But it's in the rules somewhere.
Minor players on the team for orders waiting
Watch figures on the screen that pass for real.
Is it all some dreadful dream in which we watch without participating?
Then what's this pain I feel?
And who will be around to light the candles
When winds have cleared the board, now smooth as ice?
Are all these bodies the counters of the future?
Are we too late to grab the dice?
There's still a killing field near someone's village.
There's lips still firmly sealed when asked to blame.
Soft flesh will always yield to fists and truncheons.
It's still the same old pain.
It's still the same old game.
Written: Hatfield and Potters Bar, March 1985
Words |
Music |
© Copyright Des de Moor 1992
From the album Photographs in Empty Houses (see left).
All rights reserved. No material on these pages can be reproduced in whole or in part in any form, except for short passages for the purpose of quotation or review, without prior written permission of the copyright owner.
More lyrics |
Holy Water
The Family Way
A Million Stars
Fear of Bodily Fluids
Out of Step
Open the window softly (Brendan Behan; Mikis Theodorakis)
L'Ivrogne (Jacques Brel; François Rauber/Gérard Jouannest)
The Same Old Game
Under the Needle
Old Anne's Song (Christopher Logue, adapted from Bertolt Brecht; Des de Moor)
Picnic in the Free World
Adjusted
I saw the sun (August Strindberg translated by Jonas Finlay; Des de Moor)
Aeroplanes
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