Active Listening: Beefeater

Wednesday, October 18th, 2006

Beefeater (1984-1986) was one of the flagship Revolution Summer bands in Washington, DC. Led by fiery singer Tomas Squip, guitar player Fred Smith and bass player Dug E. Bird they concocted a punk/metal/funk hybrid (with a dash of reggae as well) and took over the stage. They also brought a political element into the DC scene. Something that had not really been delved into by the original class of HarDCore bands.

The lyrics I bring forth today are from the bands song ‘Beefeater’ which Squip describes as “A dialogue between the subject and its conscience, then myself and the subject”.

Beefeater
Sit down to this and close your eyes(if you’re doing wrong you’re not alone)

sweep those thoughts right out of your mind

(there’s no place like hell but there’s no place like home)

settle down and doze awhile

(it couldn’t be right but who’s to say so)

while you’re eating that let me see you smile

(everyone else is doing it you know)

let me run down to the store for a pound of meat

make yourself at home

the flowers are blooming and the birds are all out

(you can’t catch me cause i’m lost in a crowd)

let me think of something nice to write about

(everything’s smiling for crying out loud)

the sky is like water, the clouds are like snow

(its a beautiful day so lets think real slow)

its great to be alive if they tell you so

(i close my eyes and away we go)

i hope it was good it was $2.99

now pay no mind while i run through this rhyme:

a life in a box with no place to piss

looks something like this

an innocent body slung by its heels

molested by chainsaws think how that feels

my mothers creation done nobody wrong

get shot with a gun, you know this song?

a four legged loser born in a trap

with less then a future this sound like crap?

a new born is crying why am i alone?

a mother is dying cut to the bone

sleep on this when you go to bed

(to be led down a hallway and crushed in the head)

and never live at all

a chrome plated graveyard, a ceramic tomb

a sad rivers running, of blood, for whom?

to be all alone, to call a slaughterhouse home

lets say it don’t happen lets just forget it 

there’s no place like home

where the deer and the antelope roam

to call a slaughterhouse home?

merrily merrily merrily merrily

life is but a dream

sleep it off!

(1985)