Major General Despair Lyrics - Best Before 1984 - Crass

We're looking for a better world, but what do we see? 

Just hatred, poverty, aggression, misery 

So much money spent on war 

When three quarters of the world is so helplessly poor 

Major General Despair sits at his desk, planning a new mode of attack 

He's quite unconcerned about chance or risk 

The Major General's a hard nut to crack 

Oh yes, he designs a cruise missile, tactically sound, operationally OK 

While the starving crawl onto the deathpile 

They can't avoid their fate another day 

Attack on the mind, but he calls it defence 

But I ask you again who's it for? 

Do the starving millions who don't stand a chance 

Hope to benefit by his stupid war? 

Babies crippled with hunger before they could walk 

Mothers with dry breasts cry dry tears 

And meanwhile Major General Despair gives a talk 

On increasing the war budget over the years 

How can they do it, these men of steel 

How can they plot destruction, pain? 

Is it the only way they can feel 

By killing again and again? 

Is it some part of themselves that has died 

That permits them to plan as they do? 

Or is it us that is dead, do we simply hide 

From the responsibility to stop what they do? 

There's so many of us, yet we let them have their way 

As this moment they're plotting and planning 

We've got to rise up to take their power away 

To save the world that they're ruining 

They're destroying the world with their maggot-filled heads 

Death, pain and mutilation 

They've got the responsibility of millions of dead 

Yet they're still bent on destruction 

The generals and politicians who advocate war 

Should be made to wade in the truth of it 

They should spend sleepless nights shivering with fear 

And by day time should crawl in the deathpit 

They'll find the truth of what they've done there 

Festering corpses they and their kind made 

Eyeless skulls that endlessly stare 

Having seen the truth of military trade 

The earth was our home, the wind and the air 

The blue sky, the grass and the trees 

But these masters of war, what do they care? 

Only sentiments, these 

It's our world but through violence they took it away 

Took dignity, happiness, pride 

They took all the colours and changed them to grey 

With the bodies of millions that died 

They destroy real meaning through their stupid games 

Make life a trial of fear 

They destroy what values we have with their aims 

Make us feel it's wrong if we care 

Well, we do care, it's our home they've been at it too long 

If it's a fight they want, it's beginning 

Throughout history, we've been expected to sing their tired song 

But now it's OUR turn to lead the singing 

Fight war, not wars, make peace, not war 

Fight war, not wars, we know you've heard it before 

Fight war, not wars, make peace, not war 

Fight war, not wars, make love, not war 

1-2-3-4 we don't want your fucking war