Perfect World

 

This was written in late 1994, several years after the fall of the wall. I was still thinking that even when the wall came down, there was still what the Germans call “The wall in the head”, where ideological boundaries can exist in the collective unconscious. 1994 was also a midterm election year and when the witch hunts against the Clintons had started, probably fomented by Newt Gingrich and the movement conservatives. 

I had started to write political lyrics probably going back to the first Gulf War. I don't write them anymore, but this one is interesting because of the line at the end, “a different shade of red”. The whole fall of the wall zeitgeist didn’t go on for very long. It's human nature that people are always putting up walls and fences. And here we are today with a different shade of red. 

I recorded my own version of this, which I prefer, but it was just a lo-fi demo, and these are sonically superior, but still not good productions. 

*** 

In a perfect world
We can have no walls
But we hide behind a curtain
In a restless world
A government falls
And leaves our futures quite uncertain

In a modern world
We should draw no lines
But our lives are framed in fear
In a peaceful world
There can be no war
But the enemies are always near

In an ancient world
The earth is flat and worn
But the rocks are never too old to roll
In a simple world
The past is etched in symbols upon a stone
But the future's always made of gold

The West has lost its rival
And the bureaucrats are dead
But the circumstance we face
Is just a different shade of red

Copyright 1994 Lee Barry. Rights in lyrics reserved.
 

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