The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #6183   Message #4219393
Posted By: GUEST,Jon Bartlett
18-Mar-25 - 11:02 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Androids (Ewan MacColl)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Androids (Ewan MacColl)
Here's a BC variant, from a galaxy far away in time and space:

THE ANDROIDS

Has it ever crossed your mind to ask yourself why Billy Bennett talks funny?
Have you ever paused to wonder why the Premier’s so obsessed with saving cash?
Why he castigates the teachers as nasty, selfish creatures,
And the welfare state he’d simply like to smash?
    If you have then I would ask you to forgive him -
    He’s only lately come to us from outer space.
    A free enterprise crusader who was fashioned by Darth Vader
    He’s an android, a stranger to the human race.

Has your nervous system ever been upset by Billy Bennett’s pinhead thinking?
Have you listened to him laying down the law and not been scared out of your skin?
Heard him sneer at union workers as an idle bunch of shirkers
While he demonstrates his little nervous grin?
    If you have then show a little understanding -
    The plant where he was built was strictly open-shop
    So he lacks all human passion save the one for union bashin'
    As a caring human being, he is a dreadful flop.

When the House is not in session then there’s no need for these deadbeats to be working -
They just travel round the province shaking hands and boasting just now good things are!
"EXPO, B.C. PLACE and SKYTRAIN" till it gives us all a migraine
And McCarthy’s the most nauseous by far.
    Now Grace McCarthy is indubitably lifelike
    She’s attractively displayed though she has feet of lead
    But just remember what you're seeing's not a normal human being -
    She’s zombie, a creature of the living dead.

They’ve all been taking lessons in displays of human feeling and emotion
And McClelland with his charge card's been researching prostitution in his den
And Jim Neilson took a beating for a secret little meeting -
How he’s starting up a house for battered men.
    Now restraint is what the Premier’s been preaching
    But their interpretation’s going to rock the ship -
    For J. Bob Carter, mean and sinister, doesn’t want to be a minister      
    ‘Cause the job he really wants is that of Socred Whip.

If you’re under the impression that our Health Boss Steven Rogers is an earthling
Or that Waterland and Heinrich both are too, then check yourself, you're getting slow;
And you suffer from delusions if you think McGeer is human -
He sold his brain to research long ago.
    They are exiles from a far Galactic cluster,
    They malfunctioned and were thrown out in disgrace.
    They are made of wire and plastic, frozen snot and used elastic -
    They are SOCREDS, enemies of the human race!

Jon Bartlett/Rika Ruebsaat,/Jim Edmondson/Murray Shoolbraid February 1986

A brief footnote: Billy Bennett was Premier of the province, and the others named in this variant were all ministers. McGeer was a brain scientist at one point; Jim Neilson was alleged to be conducting an affair when he was assaulted by his partner's husband; Carter was rumoured to be into S & M.