Thea Gilmore: Bulletin Britain

Hello anger its me
I've been calling almost an hour
I left a message on your machine
Yeah, well I guess you're out
Heard a black guy got killed today
Struck by nine and dead by one
We all bleed red, don't we?
No matter what side of town we're from
We're from

And I was driving out of town
Listening to the radio
And somebody wanted to know
Why does the whole country stand accused?
And just as the answer was coming back
I passed under a railway bridge
And the words got lost in a flood of static
We washed our hands, disguised the bruise

And I should have known we'd never do it
Never see humanity as some screwball work of art
We've gotta pick our shades and choose our pigments
That's bulletin Britain rallying round its colour chart

And we've been hanging on each news report
Shaking our heads and loading blanks
It's been slowly gaining interest
In the public memory banks
So that if we just close our eyes
Then we may all be absolved
Don't talk to us about blame,
In fact don't talk at all; there, problem solved

And I should have known we'd never do it
Never see humanity as some screwball work of art
We've gotta pick our shades and choose our pigments
That's bulletin Britain rallying round its colour chart

And they're coming to the door spilling names and what they've learned
And she's muttering her 'thank you's even as the deadbolt turned

I should have known we'd never do it
Never see humanity as some screwball work of art
We've gotta pick our shades and choose our pigments
That's bulletin Britain rallying round its colour chart

We need our borders, our specifics
We've got each culture on a population graph
Branding the them and us with extremist hieroglyphics
And that's bulletin Britain rallying round its colour chart

Hello anger its me I've been calling almost an hour
Left a message on your machine
Yeah, well I guess you're out