Ghetto Defendant

Album: Combat Rock (1982)
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  • Starved in metropolis
    Hooked on necropolis
    Addict of metropolis
    Do the worm on the accropolis
    Slamdance the cosmopolis
    Enlighten the populace

    Hungry darkness of living
    Who will thirst in the pit? (hooked in metropolis)
    She spent a lifetime deciding
    How to run from it (addicts of metropolis)
    Once fate had a witness
    And the years seemed like friends (girlfriends)
    Now her child has a dream
    But it begins like it ends

    Shot in eternity
    Methadone kitty
    Iron serenity

    Ghetto defendant
    It is heroin pity
    Not tear gas nor baton charge
    That stops you taking the city

    (Strung-out committee) walled out of the city
    Clubbed down from uptown
    Sprayed pest from the nest
    Run out to barrio town (The guards are itchy)
    Forced to watch at the feast
    Then sweep up the night
    Flipped pieces of coin (broken bottles)
    Exchanged for birthright (grafted in a jiffy)

    Ghetto defendant, it is heroin pity (strung-out committee)
    Not tear gas nor baton charge
    That stops you taking the city (not sitting pretty)
    (Grafted in a jiffy) heroin pity
    Not tear gas nor baton charge
    That stops you taking the city

    The ghetto prince of gutter poets
    Was bounced out of the room (Jean Arthur Rimbaud)
    By the bodyguards of greed
    For disturbing the tomb (eighteen-seventy-three)
    His words like flamethrowers (paris commune)
    Burnt the ghettos in their chests
    His face was painted whiter
    And he was laid to rest (died in Marseille)

    Ghetto defendant, it is heroin pity (buried in Charleville)
    Not tear gas nor baton charge
    That stops you taking the city (shut up in etenity)

    It is heroin pity
    Not tear gas nor baton charge
    That stops you taking the city

    Guatemala, Honduras, Poland, the Hundred-Years War
    TV re-run invasion
    Death squad Salvador
    Afghanistan, meditation, old Chinese flu
    Kick junk, what else can a poor worker do?

    Ghetto defendant
    In heroin pity
    Not tear gas nor baton charge
    That stops you taking the city

    Ghetto defendant
    It is heroin pity Writer/s: Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon
    Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

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