May Day Redux

Remember the days before the first world war,
the Gilded Age if you know your history, sure,
it was long time ago with people in the first days of May,
in the street for the eight hour work day,
insteada sleep deprived workers, barely have a life outside the factory,
shining shoes or waiting tables for secretary for the treasury,
and in Chicago where they be packing meat all night long,
the workers stood up to their bosses, tellin 'em this life is wrong--
wage slaves for the productivity, incoming profits
didn't have a place in the pockets of the ones who labor for it,
so they marched and marched and marched on the fourth of May,
when a bomb got thrown, four civilians, seven cops dead,
and that's when the eyes of the PD boiled red,
tried eight anarchists and killed them fast,
all eight innocent screaming "free at last, free at last"--



(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
hair pulled, pepper spray across the pavement
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
the Empire's subjects out in the street restless
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
I'll tell you once, it's a secret: this life's a wild ferment
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
Labor the only thing you have so it's precious
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
Shanti shanti shanti.


So now in celebration of the price for labor rights,
along with Occupy Seattle's angry taste for riot-fights,
we got the Black Bloc stormin' windows up at Niketown,
someone next to me holding a sign and acting all proud asking
"Didn't they do that back in '99?" It was louder then,
now it's just a fetishized copycat trend,
justified by the weak thrashing out against the strong,
but it's all the weak's fault spouts the mouths of the neo-cons--
I can't forget to mention the Pink Bloc's involvement,
(We're here, we're queer, we're unicorns and we'll fuck you up)
screaming about those who were alienated into retirement
from this world to the next one and it's somehow the government's
fault, but all we really want is a better world,
somewhere that isn't so bureaucratically cold,
Hip-Hop Occupy's turnin' the shindig to a block party,
a good two thousand at Westlake packed like sardines,
and in a march we're squeezed into Pike Place,
cops on horses craving a chase, so some of us ran,
caused small panic, a couple minutes later and the
anger be seeping.



(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
hair pulled, pepper spray across the pavement
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
the Empire's subjects out in the street restless
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
I'll tell you once, it's a secret: this life's a wild ferment
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
Labor the only thing you have so it's precious
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
Shanti shanti shanti.


And at the end of the day it starts to rain, this,
the first day of May, we marched to the dinner bell,
met up with an immigration rally, group starting to swell,
but now I'm outtie, cold without poncho,
got three buses to take back home-- where'd the fight go?
Turns out that the May Day fiasco is the end of Occupy's
first round, let's make the second one count,
before we're enveloped in these feelings of doubt.



(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
hair pulled, pepper spray across the pavement
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
the Empire's subjects out in the street restless
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
I'll tell you once, it's a secret: this life's a wild ferment
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
Labor the only thing you have so it's precious
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
Shanti shanti shanti.



But I forgot to mention the saddest part of the thing,
some woman caught up in the tires of her dreams,
pregnant up in the front lines, got shoved by a pig
on a bicycle, gave birth to a stillborn later that night,
and the cycle continues, not ready to choose
who's right and who's to blame, I go back to take
a final exam the next day.