Platforms (Count Zero)

This Song I Wrote is a far ways away from here. With it, though, I swear you could get your conscience clear. You could make your sobs soak the heart of some financier Who thinks that gold licks the tip of each well-aimed spear. You could demand a recount of any crooked polls. You could uplift your spirits like you're wearing platform souls Or walking round on stilts your heart controls Through choking soldiers bent o'er streets of coals. Yeah, you could go straight to the war-torn wrapped in gauze, And deep-freeze them with a worthy cause While the breeze through the trees gives applause. You keep walking while the healing thaws Through fields that Cezanne draws You change your feet to tiger's paws Ask which road is Shangri-La's Take a left at the Land of Oz Pass the statue of Santa Claus Then you'll know you're in this song I wrote. This song I wrote could make a politician sweat. Stab a snapshot future through his conscience like a bayonet. Show him wheelchair dowries in the cradle, crying, "Massive Debt!" And it's ev'ry phrase'd be a sword-tongued epithet. And it'd lick some pea-brained "education president" By stirring up each couch-trousered resident And getting them to look inside their porcupine coats To see beneath their purse a throbbing heart That's being robbed a vote And be thankful this here's a Voter Republic And get in the booth or see a Notary Public And mark a ballot true, and approved, And by the millions, by God, we'll prove To those fuckers who can't feel to groove That they ain't wanted, pack their things, and MOVE! Clean out the sin, we're movin' in, it's time To rid the world of your covert crime! The only thing to stop us now is a rhyme. Well, then, I see... it's just a song I wrote. This song I wrote might be my ticket outta here. The only thing anyone else might ever hear. And since it might work I guess I'd best make this sincere, To educate, and raise someone's consciousness one tier; To combat crap heedless hoodlum popstar tarts emit Too busy trying to top the charts to dare admit To the spiritual casualties they inflict On their fans, as they walk Fame's road, so yellow-bricked. The Fame they seek to get the spotlight shown On them, to preach, and let themselves be known To me, and you, and her, and every other drone. So they're the flower to be sucked on, to be grown. But each idea of theirs is a vapid seed. It's from a soul where fame's the only need Yet in this world, where the god is greed, Vapid is valid if the purses bleed. These and other injustices cause Me to calmly re-ink my claws And let the muses rejuice my jaws To let go a little song I wrote. It might seem like, with all of these Impassioned platform pleas, I should be singing "Vote For Me!" But I'm not, don't get me wrong. I'm just a singer, and this song I wrote, I wrote for me