BOAT PEOPLE
Million years now
We’ve been going
Ever moving
Ever flowing
We’ve been rowing
We’ve been rowing
We’ve been rowing
Some for love and
Some from hunger
Some from war
And some from thunder
We’ve been rowing
We’ve been rowing
We’ve been rowing
MILLENNIALS
You wore Kohl and
Sandal incense dreams
I played tapes and
Smoked those ancient leaves
We wrote films that
Never saw a frame
We saw world peace
Deep inside a flame
We were young and
We were so naive
You wore Kohl and
Ruby roze quartz dreams
Sa Re Ga Re Pa Re Ga Re Sa
WALA
Streaming light to the skies
Red and gold your designs
Wouldn't you call her?
Your sister? Your sister? Your sister?
Southern hills you defy
Hold the sun in your eye
Wala Oh Wala
Wala Oh Wala
Wala Oh Wala!
SMITH STREET
Walk up Smith Street
The ice head is losing it
The football gang’s
Rabid on the 86
Mullet Jim and Mohawk Jack
Smoke outside the Tote
And I feel so invisible
And I feel so invincible
The Wurrundjeri man’s
Ashamed of his beggary
Bespoke Lou and boutique Sam
Are sipping six dollar coffees
There's a bald white man
Fuming at the green store
There's a brown guard standing outside the Yoga floor
A yellow woman's selling cheap chicken by the score
There's an angry man screaming for the days of yore
And I feel so invisible
And I feel so invincible
Chaya hun main pardes main
TABHU’S QUESTION MARKS (Lyrics by Amitav 'Tabhu' Misra, 1992)
People are question marks
They have no identity
Masquerading around in masks
No one knows anyone in reality
Question marks, aren’t we?
Question marks…
SLAVE TRADE
Age of misinformation
And all you see
Slaves of every colour
Serving thee
First divide and conquer
Then you rule
Numbed our brains didn’t you master?
Made us drool
Over entertained and underpaid
Mr Galileo turns in his grave
Love is the drug
(There’s another soul out there)
Cool is the fuel
(There’s another soul out there)
Age of information
And we will see
Minds of every nation
Fighting thee
Knowledge triumphs darkness
Knowledge wins
Knowledge smashes rules
And knowledge sings
Superhuman and super aware
Evolution just don’t care
Love is the drug
(There’s another soul out there)
Cool is the fuel
(There’s another soul out there)
THIRD WORLD WAR (Lyrics written twenty years ago on 9/11/2001)
Split by a splinter
Lit by a flame
Caught by a sinner
Lost and insane
Luckless like a diplomat
Atheist like a priest
Killed like an angel
Blessed like a dog
The beauty of haste
The poetry of waste
Black in the white
Like a peaceful fight
Like a peaceful fight
Like a peaceful fight
LYN’S LOST PARADISE (Lyrics by Lyn Gleeson)
I went for a drive
Looking for my lost paradise
And it opened up eyes
I found lots of beautiful spaces
I can feel it in my soul
The rain’s coming
Then the sunshine
My rainbow’s here
Now I face myself
I face myself
I face myself
Where is my lost paradise?
What am I looking for?
When will I let it happen?
Why am In blind to it all?
Where is my lost paradise?
What am I looking for?
When will I let it happen?
Why am In blind to it all?
TOXIC CITY
We met in a toxic city
Exchanging poison kisses
We met in a toxic city
Hard on the edges but trembling inside
And I was just a sailor
Drowning in the smog sea
Reading Keats and Shelly
On spit soaked buses in a toxic city
We met in a toxic city
In fumes we sighed
in smog we danced
We met in a toxic city
But now we live in a violet jacaranda valley
Surrounded by the deep blue sea
Can we exorcise this toxic city
This toxic city
This toxicity
OLD BOMBAY
In the streets of old Bombay
I heard you say
I heard you say
You'd chase my blues away
And waltz through lonesome Saturdays
With your neon matchbox lies
In the bright of your ocean dress
A lantern lights an amethyst
Its a joyful, joyful life
Say the young girls eyes
Say the young girls eyes
Celluloid Colaba dreams
In black and white
Washed away by the cool westerly night breeze
Cloaked in thick cigar smoke
Cloaked in thick cigar smoke
Portside smuggler handshakes
And a dead starlets eye mascara
And a dead starlets eye mascara
And a dead starlets eye mascara
With your neon matchbox lies...
AGE OF KALI
Age Of Kali
The Lights go out
Age Of Kali
There is no sound
Dances on the dead lingam
Her tongue sticks out
Age Of Kali
The blackness shines
Age Of Kali
The end divine
Those eyes of red
Burn into you
Age Of Kali
Your form burns out
Age Of Kali
There is no doubt
The serpents hiss
And the men scream and shout
Rexxon mobil, Roka Cola, Ree MW, The moon we own her
Age of Kali’s going to bring you down
EULOGY
Sunbird sitting on a willow tree
The infant’s crying for the love supreme
The stars are shining beyond us
Their light wouldn’t set us free
The moon’s smiling above us
Her tales we’d never see
The salesmen’s selling his own suicide
The priest is looking for a place to hide
The stars are shining beyond us
Their light wouldn’t set us free
The moon’s smiling above us
Her tales we’d never see
Lets dance to our eulogy
Lets dance to our eulogy
Lets dance to our eulogy
OCEAN
Deep within the ocean
Voices seem to call
Deep within the ocean
Something seems to fall
You, I thought I knew you
Wrapped in winter haze
You, I thought I knew you
Silken in embraces
Deep within the ocean
Deep within the ocean
Deep within the ocean
Deep within the ocean
A ghost city does sigh
Deep within the ocean
I hear a lullaby
Deep within the ocean
Deep within the ocean
Deep within the ocean
You, I thought I knew you
Like a secret place
You, I thought I knew you
Like a yellowed page
Deep within the ocean
Deep within the ocean
Deep within the ocean
Hymns of long lost Vedas
Seem to whisper by…
USHA
Usha awakes
The goddess of dawn
Usha returns
To light up the morn
Usha’s golden skin illuminates the sky
Usha awakes, the goddess of dawn
Usha Usha Usha Usha Oh Usha
And Ratri
The goddess of the night
Lingers
In the darkness of the sky
In the eyes of the beast
The Vedic fire
Is leaping higher
The Vedic fire
Is leaping higher...
Usha Usha Usha Usha Oh Usha
RAJA OF INDRAPRASTHA
This city is a carcass
Of a thousand crowns
Our glory lies buried
Our stories have drowned
Invisible letters they scream
In Ashokan pillars
And in my dreams
Now that I notice
That you’re not around
I’m going to let it out
I’m going to shout
I am the Raja Of Indraprastha
I am the Raja Of Indraprastha
I am the Raja Of Indraprastha
Where is my kingdom?
Where is my crown?
I am the Raja Of Indraprastha
REBIRTH
I have been to other lifetimes
Though the scenes I cannot trace
Old pianos, walks in gardens
Don’t know you but I know your face
I have walked these streets before but
Cities come and cities they burn
The palace shone in diamond splendour
Your four words were death defined
I have scripted all these scenes where I’m
The seer and the seen
Do you see your lives flash by as
Seconds bloom and seconds burn
CLIMATE CHANGE MAN
It’s a Tuesday afternoon
He’s deep within the moon
Eyes lit up in silent rage
Lost in his cocoon
Cutouts in his room
Making speeches on the eve of doom
Screeching tales of glacial thirst
Of river whales that die in the mud
Of pesticides and stratospheres
Climate change, change man
What a strange, strange man
Climate change, change man
What a strange, strange man
Between the lama and the road
The drama and the lore
He shadows on a rural street
Chasing a skylark
The sun’s getting dark
Cause the whole world’s burning down
Screeching tales of glacial thirst
Of river whales that die in the mud
Of pesticides and stratospheres
Climate change, change man
What a strange, strange man
Climate change climate change
Climate change, climate change man
Says life’s like a store where people just want more
Of what has bought them to begin with…
LOVE
My baby she don’t really watch television
The show she loves to see is life
My baby she don’t ever shop on a Sunday
Knows the beautiful is free
She gives me love, love, sweet love
She gives me love, love, sweet love
My baby she don’t really understand them brandings
Knows that everything is one
My baby’s grooving to the cricket orchestra
Loves designs in the sky
She gives me love, love, sweet love
She gives me love, love, sweet love
My baby she don’t think that saying is believing
Don’t understand them lies
My baby loves the blood of justice
Knows two wrongs don’t make a right
She gives me love, love, sweet love
She gives me love, love, sweet love
The sky is love
Why is love
I’m love
You are love
Love, love, love, Sweet love
WAHE GURU
Sometimes there are no roads
Some roads just have no time
Some rhymes are understood
Some lines they circle back
Wahe Guru, Wahe Guru
Dravid hits a six
Dhoni rolls his arm
Sachin loses calm
Bradman faces Warne
Wahe Guru Wahe Guru
You love so much you hate
You run so much you’re still
You hurt so much you laugh
You laugh so much you cry
Wahe Guru, Wahe Guru
Some die to show us life
Some gods may be unkind
Some burn in rhythmic fire
Some beats they'll always breathe
Wahe Guru, Wahe Guru
You love so much you hate
You run so much you're still
You laugh so much you cry
You cry so much you laugh
Wahe Guru, Wahe Guru
BOOM BOOM SHIVA
Shiva’s such a lonesome guy
With his house up in the sky
Shiva loves to dress in black
Ash clad with matted hair
Shiva does the yoga too
His apartment’s coloured blue
Boom Boom Shiva bring me down
Boom Boom Shiva bring me down
Shiva plays a drum solo
Dances frantic, breathes real slow
Shiva loves to get real high
Soma helps to make him fly
Shiva loves to run so fast
He’s got no future he's got no past
Boom Boom Shiva bring me down
Shiva roams the streets at night
Breaks the rules and loves a fight
Shiva's been to the cities dens
Where black money numbs your sense
Shiva saw the mushroom sky
Atoms form his next third eye
Boom Boom Shiva
Bring me down
WHO
Who says that a piece of paper, gets me what I want?
Who says that a barbed wire fence, tells me what I’m not?
Who says that the seen, heard, spoken is everything there is?
It aint me
It ain't you
Who says some are born to riches, others to rags?
Who says that this profit motive aint just a load of gas?
Who says that we can’t grow food for everyone to eat?
It aint me
It ain't you
Who says what is one and hundred, who says what is none?
Who says that a circle ain't just a square on the run?
Who says that all that’s added isn’t just subtracted?
It aint me
It ain't you
Is it an eye in the sky?
Is it a lullaby?
Is it an open field?
Is it a stock exchange?
Is it an ancient book?
It aint me
TAMASIC ELECTRIC TOOLS
Men use
Women consume
Mist in the dune
Dance to my tunes
Might don’t do
Might can’t be cool
Blood without drool
Light is fuel
Tamasic electric tools
Flow with the tide
Don’t erase light
Spacious flight tide
Room without sight
Lying on lies
Sighing in signs
Middle of lines
You’re gonna be fine
Tamasic electric tools
Plastic can flow
It don’t glow
Gold is sown
And the reaper was morose, Joe
Lying on lies
Sighing in signs
Middle of lines
You’re gonna be fine
Tamasic electric tools
EYES ON THE RADIO
Everybody’s looking for my eyes on the radio
See the tide rise as the moon starts to flow
I have always known that the telepathy starts to grow
Do you see me whisper all the sights that you’ve never known?
Everybody's looking for my eyes on the radio
See the golden dawn as the canvas of night unfolds
The lake in the mirror of a sign in a Mughal fort
Glows as the moonlit mystic maiden, she sings alone
Everybody's looking for my eyes on the radio
See the golden dawn as the canvas of light unfolds
The moon was a ship of conversations
Emerald green and silken wondrous flow
And we sail on the river
And we sail
And we sail on the river of bliss…
NEW DELHI BLUES
I've got the New Delhi Blues and I'm losing my cool
Fifty degrees and I feel like a fool,
9 to 5 I cannot breathe
5 to 9 I'm incomplete
Wear my boots and I kick
The whole damn city makes me sick
Seven years down when I lost my woman
I closed my eyes and she stole my soul
One day I wake up to my ears plugged in
To American trash venting out his rage
Wear my boots and I kick
The whole damn city makes me sick
I've got the New Delhi Blues and I'm losing my cool,
You think that you're honest
They think you're a mule
Wear my boots and I kick
The whole damn city makes me sick
7 years down when I lost my best friend,
He snorted white lie for Coca Cola
Blue and dead he came from the hills
Shooting New Delhi had lost its thrills
Wear my tie and I kiss
The whole damn city may make me rich
We lost our farm
We lost our tribe
We lost our dreams
We lost our farm
We lost our tribe
We lost our name
In shooting New Delhi
It's the shooting New Delhi Blues
THIRD WORLD SUPERPOWER TRAFFIC LIGHTS
Sheila sings songs of vanity
A princess on her garbage can throne
She’s our post independent super power co defendant glamorous urchin starving song show host
Sheila sings songs of fantasy
While shining cars play hit and miss
She’s their blind old juvenile beggar driving obstacle course -a Monday morning chore
Sheila sings songs that won't let her be
The peanut seller fortune teller frowns
She wonders if fate has a warm embrace
Only for those who can't see it
Cause at the third world super power traffic light
Hunger’s not a word it really bites
The rich get richer and poor get torn
The up is tough and the down is out
Sheila sings songs of maternity
Cause at the third world super power traffic light
Accidents make death
And accidents make life
P.C’s AND MUGHALS
I went down one morning through streets that scream a lie
I went through the pillars where time seems to die
I took a winding road by a yellow distant jeep
He was hinting that the stars at this hour begin to weep
I looked at the idol that shone by the tree
He seemed to tell me of a time when we were free
I hurried to the priest who worshipped a phone
He told me of a million kinds of different crayons
And though with due permission, the antichrist does strike
What kind of mist do you hide in, my love?
I stopped around a rickshaw just to ride me a horse
I looked at two soldiers who were fighting swords
I asked them what the hell they were they doing on main ring road
Soon I was bloodied and lost in a horde
The time seems to hide beyond the tree side
The crickets they do whisper and give me a high five
Ive left this age of 'Missiles(Misil)' please give me a gun
In the old days, killing was just so much fun(not)
I could have read your poems through the green sculpted glass
But now I just sit here making stereos blast
How could King Akbar never mention me
When I was in his court making history
And though with due permission the antichrist does strike
What kind of mist do you hide in, my love?
It seems like we're all circling the Jama Masjid
We’ve got a left side that’s like a windows PC
And every time I hide and you do the seeking
We land up in a dream with Kohinoor stealing
The golden crow is making a lama see the light
I’m just sitting here making fire fight
The age of right and wrong is way past below us
We end up waltzing in Blavatsky’s gym
And though with due permission the antichrist does strike
What kind of mist do you hide in, my love?
QUEEN
You gotta love me, baby queen
You gotta love me
Know what I mean
And do the sweet dance of loving
You gotta love me, crazy queen
You gotta love me, See the scene?
And do the sweet dance of loving
Girl you've got me and i'm sliding away
You've gotta love me
Cause love ain't mathematics
1 plus 1 can be so fun
2 plus 2, say I love you
3 plus 3, nobody's free
4 plus 4, baby whats the score?
Baby Margherita gonna teach you a sin sin
Each time you ride a trip trip
Gonna feel like a scene in a Dorothy dream
See fields where the clouds stay hiding the in thing
It's blue like the truth like the old statue
Like the clock from the stock of the queen of Atlantis
Girl you've got me and I'm sliding away
THE WELL
Ive been walking and walking for many a mile
Ive seen nothing but the blackness inside
I tried to break walls, tried to light me a fire
But as much as I jump, I can’t go higher
Suddenly I heard the sound of the strings
The song of a muse, the voice of the wind
She kissed me and said we’re all floating and free
But the splash of a stone broke my sweet reverie
We’re deep in a well and the angels have died
The more that we fight, the more we will cry
Ive been working all day, all night and all morn,
Sometimes I wonder why I ever was born,
The masters do change but the rulers do not,
I’m just like detergent I wipe out the blot.
I heard hunger scream in my shack by the night,
I knew that I stood between the wrong and right
I dug out a treasure made of all that I've robbed,
It's then that I knew that my heartbeat had stopped.
We’re deep in a well and the angels have died
The more that we fight, the more we will cry
BEAUTY GROWS OLD
Beauty grows old, lives in a mansion
Watching kids play, lonely at evening
Thinks of the cheers, she heard from the spotlight
The gaiety of chase, a goddess in gold
Beauty grows cold, sipping on her coffee
She looks at the stars, they don’t hide no secrets
Thinks of a love, she never thought him fit
He goes past her window, playing with the kids
Beauty is bold,she runs upto him now
He takes off his specs, says ‘Sorry?'
FIREFLY'S SERMON
Up in the mountains
No one is here
A stream sings a song as
An eagle flies near
Can you hear me
Am I clear?
Can you hear me?
This is real
Earth spins spins again
Down in the valley
No one is here
Leaves seem to whisper as
The thunder draws near
Can you hear me
Am I clear?
Can you hear me?
This is real
Earth spins spins again
Up in the big city
Plenty are here
Cars beep and scream as
Markets sell fears
Can you hear me
Am I clear?
Can you hear me
This is real
Clock ticks ticks again
AUROVILLE
Had enough of this traffic
Had enough of this smog
Had enough of these numbers
That say we're what
So I'm going to Auroville
The city of dawn
Had enough of these boxes
Had enough of these fights
Had enough of this city
Still colonised
So I'm going to Auroville
The city of dawn
Bringing down the superconscious mind