No good deed goes unpunished
In this topsy turvy place
The wrong people in power, in prison,
In the breadline, losing face.
I put two parents in the ground by 24
Their ghosts march with me, young no more,
For I have learned, we’re not cursed
We just live in a world where the good ones go first.
The NHS, it did its best
But bound and gagged and laid to rest
It just aint what it used to be
So the cuts cut up our families.
Yet you ask why we smash a few windows?
Why we bang on the Parliament doors?
“We’re dying out here, sirs,
And the good ones are going down first
So please sir, can we have some more
Of what’s rightfully ours?”
I loved a boy that stood for justice
And was taken down for nothing,
They take your freedom if you use it
And call power out on suffering.
Cops can bash kids’ heads in and go home to their wives
While our boys stare through bars, left behind by their lives
Watching futures fall down cos they took a slip back
Took some cash to get by or took a stand while black
He’s not cursed – it’s just the good ones go first.
I loved a girl that cared too much
And means the world to me,
They say she’s sick because she strains
To accept a sick society.
But we’ve got pills for that now, don’t we?
Drug em up, lock em up and teach them how to sleep inside,
To swallow the dose of apathy prescribed
Till they forget they ever dreamed of being free,
Just so long as they sit their SATs
And put down their aspirations as they leave.
And we’ve got legions of these kids behind white walls
Cutting themselves up because life is pain, not airbrushed and glossy
And the TV made them hate themselves
And now, they can’t see their own beauty.
She’s not cursed – the good ones just go first.
I love a woman and her children
Imprisoned back at home
Who were bullied and broken
And left all alone
She gave her life to raise them right on stormy seas
But that’s not labour or sacrifice the economy sees
So when she found the courage to run and the strength to go on
She wound up at the food bank, black eyed daughter, frightened son.
Apparently, the state just doesn’t have resources for that
After the bonuses, bailouts, bombs and other crap.
It’s not them, they’re not cursed – the good ones go first.
I loved a survivor, silent for a year,
Carrying her rapist’s shame for him was the worst
But that’s what we do: “shouldn’t have said that, gone there, worn that skirt.”
And no one ever made her feel strong a day in her life
And the greatest dream she inherited was to be a rich woman’s wife
Now she’s explaining to ATOS why she’s too scared to work
“Well you’re 17 and out of school,” they smirk.
But I promise her through gritted teeth
She isn’t cursed or weak
She’s good – and the good ones go first.
I’ve loved brothers and sisters in detention camps,
Queuing for clean water and sleeping on gym floors,
And feared and hated all because
They fled from brutal wars,
Risked everything on that crossing I’ve seen take so many souls
Just to run into barbed wire, tear gas and concrete walls.
We’d sit on the lifejacket beaches and
I’d think of the good ones back home when they’d ask
If it would be ok when they reached London
Or was this the will of God or Allah?
And some days I couldn’t answer
Without breaking my own heart.
There’s no water that can ever
Wash a system like this clean
But I have seen us building something better
On the streets and in my dreams,
While they ask why we smash a few windows,
Why we bang on the Parliament doors,
“We’re dying out here, sirs,
And the good ones are going down first
But if you’d just shut up and listen
You’d hear us coming for what’s ours
The good ones will cross the threshold first
And in their footprints, new grown grass.”
