We’re a nation of caners,
Excusers, explainers
We’re wasting away every night, every day
Assuring ourselves we’re blameless
Of everything heading their way.
We use and we use, throw away and away
Caning the plains, planing the cane
Jetting the snuff and snuffing the pain
Nothing’s enough, nothing’s enough.
A sniff on a cuff and a fag to a flame
Downing the foam and filling the drain
Ravenous men, ravenous girls
Ravage it all until nothing remains.
Blue yonder, the wonder
Of getting behind the pale
Slipping out of the jailed brain to a cage
We made in a rage of thirst.
Thirst for ease, thirst for plunder
Thirst for junk and speed and candour
Thirst for splendour, a binge, a bender
Return to sender.
Burn the canopy churn the blender
Rape the barley, bend the fender
Burn the embers, burn the embers
Cane and cane and cane dissenters
Ream the renters, shame the campers
Stamp the punters through
Members get a tent to hurl into.
We all know where we’re going to.
We’re a nation of caners,
who could blame us –
Have you seen the state of what
they left for us to use?
Have you seen the place
They think is fit for humans, fit for purpose?
Purpose being caning, caning,
Purges in the virgin forest
Urges in the depth of dreaming
Muffled screaming coming from the cane.
Desperate praying underneath the rain.
Consume it all you must
or there’ll be never ending pain.
A future filled with cesspits of the slain.
A future that we never could
Explain for all the world
The caner boys, the caner girls
Buried in their shame.
Nation against nation
Never sickening of the game.
We’re a race apart of caners
Floggers, torturers in trainers
Ostrich headed party planners
Carry-onners, carry-outers
Flat denial earthers, science doubters
Flabby thinkers, shabby lovers
Anti-social fatal drinkers
Shirkers, duckers, divers, wankers
Blissed and pissed within our blinkers.
A caning nation
An acidic aberration
A full-force pillage through
The gifts of the creation.
Heaven was our source,
the underworld our destination
There are worthless whirls of bank notes
Floating through the station.
Can you hear the desperate praying
underneath the rain?
Can you feel the past
Shoving us on to the train?
We’re a nation of caners,
and who can blame us?
Mamma lets us follow
anywhere our nature takes us.
Fruit loop blitzers
We’ve got a taste for space
and need to fill the void with chasers,
Need to drink to our disgraces.
Peak grease racers,
We can’t stop until we die
Pull me back into the bar
Before I see the sky.
Baby, you’re working for the man
You’re doing everything you can
The weight of shit you carry round
One day you’re gonna just derail
Every time I pick you up
It’s like I’m springing you from jail.
We’re a nation of caners
Who can blame us?
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Nation of Caners - Del Amitri
