Monster

[H2O Man]

by John Kay, Jerry Edmonton, Nick St. Nicholas and Larry Byrom

(Monster)
Once the religious, the hunted and weary
Chasing the promise of freedom and hope
Came to this country to build a new vision
Far from the reaches of kingdom and pope
Like good Christians, some would burn the witches
Later some got slaves to gather riches

But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light

And once the ties with the crown had been broken
Westward in saddle and wagon it went
And 'til the railroad linked ocean to ocean
Many the lives which had come to an end
While we bullied, stole and bought our a homeland
We began the slaughter of the red man

But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light

The blue and grey they stomped it
They kicked it just like a dog
And when the war over
They stuffed it just like a hog

And though the past has it's share of injustice
Kind was the spirit in many a way
But it's protectors and friends have been sleeping
Now it's a monster and will not obey

(Suicide)
The spirit was freedom and justice
And it's keepers seem generous and kind
It's leaders were supposed to serve the country
But now they won't pay it no mind
'Cause the people grew fat and got lazy
And now their vote is a meaningless joke
They babble about law and order
But it's all just an echo of what they've been told
Yeah, there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watchin'

Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin' the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner
We can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching

(America)
America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster

[babylonsister]

1. How timely and appropriate. Here's the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpuyXdKx9Ws

[Octafish]

2. That song kept us going...

...back in '69.

America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster
America?

Thanks, H20 Man! Steppenwolf rocks!

[DailyGrind51]

13. I hear ya, Bro!

[Fumesucker]

3. The Ostrich

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOBOaF4OKNw

We'll call you when you're six years old
And drag you to the factory
To train your brain for eighteen years
With promise of security
But then you're free
And forty years you waste to chase the dollar sign
So you may die in Florida
At the pleasant age of sixty nine

The water's getting hard to drink
We've mangled up the country side
The air will choke you when you breathe
We're all committing suicide
But it's alright
It's progress folks keep pushin' till your body rots
Will strip the earth of all it's green
And then divide her into parking lots

But there's nothing you and I can do
You and I are only two
What's right and wrong is hard to say
Forget about it for today
We'll stick our heads into the sand
Just pretend that all is grand
Then hope that everything turns out ok

You're free to speak your mind my friend
As long as you agree with me
Don't criticize the father land
Or those who shape your destiny
'Cause if you do
You'll lose your job your mind and all the friends you knew
We'll send out all our boys in blue
They'll find a way to silence you

But there's nothing you and I can do
You and I are only two
What's right and wrong is hard to say
Forget about it for today
We'll stick our heads into the sand
Just pretend that all is grand
Then hope that everything turns out ok

[leveymg]

4. My favorite Steppenwolf tune. One of the strongest protest songs ever written in America.

Unfortunately, the message is just as true today as it was when it was first recorded.

Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner" is up there, along with "Won't you please come to Chicago" by CS&N.

[DailyGrind51]

14. I can't listen to those songs anymore,

without crying for what might have been.

[leveymg]

17. Know the feeling.

But, I was tapped out a long time ago when it comes to grief and tears. What fills the void pretty much determines what I am, these days. I have my good days, and my bad days.

[hobbit709]

5. Working Class Hero

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njG7p6CSbCU



As soon as your born they make you feel small,
By giving you no time instead of it all,
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school,
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool,
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years,
Then they expect you to pick a career,
When you can't really function you're so full of fear,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,
And you think you're so clever and classless and free,
But you're still fucking peasents as far as I can see,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
There's room at the top they are telling you still,
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,
If you want to be like the folks on the hill,
A working class hero is something to be.
A working class hero is something to be.
If you want to be a hero well just follow me,
If you want to be a hero well just follow me.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

6. my favorite song when I was a HS senior. K&R

[cliffordu]

7. Yepp...I like this one too...

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you've been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you've been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

And everybody knows that it's now or never
Everybody knows that it's me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah when you've done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows

And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows

And everybody knows that you're in trouble
Everybody knows what you've been through
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
To the beach of Malibu
Everybody knows it's coming apart
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
Before it blows
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Oh everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows

[Better Today]

8. Good song, but the idea that our USA history

was ever anything to be proud of or to glorify is complete bs. We stole this country (from Native Americans, not the English), and have systematically ruined it ever since. Our society has never been an equal society, our police have always been overbearing to one group or another, our judicial system has always been corrupted by money, freedom and justice have only been for the few, the rich, and the lucky.... Glorifying it's past only indicates the ignorance of the writers.

[1Hippiechick]

9. TY. I am descended from the Cherokee, and truer words were never spoken. This country was founded

on CAPITALISM, and our "history" is nothing to be proud of, imo.

[Beringia]

10. Cars

part of a riff I wrote as a teenager


This grand sphere has been unrelentlessly
inexhaustibly criss-crossed
with tar and cement
So that four wheels supporting a hunk of metal
may roll along
We plunge deep into this sphere
and harvest unripe, resistant spoils
to feed these machines
This piracy will die a
slow and stubborn death
Then the flat smooth by-ways
will buckle and crack
undulate
until they again conspire
with the Earth's motion
Holes will mar the even tar
lines will crease the pots of grease
Folding, rolling, splitting, chipping
to pieces with you, to pieces will
go this belt buckle strapped
around the sphere

[spanone]

11. steppenwolf

http://www.steppenwolf.com/

r

[DailyGrind51]

12. John Kay escaped East Germany under the hail of "heavy metal thunder"!

Having "Iron Curtain" relatives myself, I became an admirer of John Kay during the early '70s. As this interview demonstrates, Kay is a person of genuine depth and intellect, his music expressing the anger of the late '60s and early '70s.

_________________________________________________________________________________________






" I was born with a birth defect that left me lacking in the eye department...I'm totally color blind, which means that my world is black and white and gray....I am very light sensitive....hence, I've been wearing dark glasses since I was about 3 years old and I'm so-called legally blind, which means that I can't drive and a few other things. Perhaps because of the fact that I grew up in Germany after World War II (and then later during my high school years in Canada), but in Germany with people returning (those that were lucky enough to return) with limbs missing, families that lost (as did my father's family) up to 6 boys in the war and so on and so forth, it seemed relatively insignificant by comparison to real suffering. Certainly my mother understood my difficulties and tried to help me in whatever way possible. One of those attempts at helping me took the form of her managing to get me into the Rudolph Steiner School in Hannover, Germany where we lived after we escaped from East Germany in the 50's. This was tremendously helpful to me since I could not read the blackboard and schools were overcrowded in post-war Germany....this sort of private attention really helped me to learn, not only in the normal sense, but also their way of teaching was one that broadened one's horizons and taught the humanities..... and it was no wonder this particular school had been banned during the Hitler regime because they were far too humane, I think, in their view of the world and its inhabitants. In any event, there were certain benefits, I think, that I derived. I was always fairly tall and big for my age and would perhaps with normal eyesight have gravitated towards physical pursuits. It turned out that team sports were really not in the cards. However, as a young child, music...albeit in the early years it wasn't rock & roll...it was the Russian Cossack music and other things that I did not necessarily understand the lyrics of, but that as one of the Neville Brothers said, "Music from the heart goes to the heart"....somehow, this music connected with me in a way that the pain and humanity of it connected deeply with me....and it gave me my first inkling that music was more than just something that's in the background while you do your homework, or whatever. When rock & roll came....(that is after the goose bumps and the Little Richard baptism and so forth)....after that I knew what I had as a boy in the way of a daydream. You're in that adolescent period where you don't really think about reality 10 years from now, but what you'd like to be if your wish list could be granted, so to speak. It was at that time also that you realize the lack of sight was something that....sometimes you didn't need it. Stevie Wonder, I suppose, and Ray Charles and others will tell you that the ears work very well even if the eyes don't so, overall I have made peace with that situation a long time ago. And in Canada, when I went to certain special classes where some of the people were outright blind, I had the good fortune of making a friendship with a fellow that I'm still in touch with who's one of Canada's finest blind skiers.....totally blind. And when you see the capabilities of others who are worse off in that sense than you are in keeps it in perspective for you."

http://www.steppenwolf.com/s/w/ques_pt1.html

[kgnu_fan]

15. Thank you, that is a good song now than ever

[Me.]

16. K & R