Pity The Plight

(album: Ill Manors - 2012)

[Intro John Cooper Clarke:]
Pity the fates of young fellows
Too long in bed with no sleep
With their complex romantic attachments
All look on their sorrows and weep
They don't get a moment's reflection
There's always a crowd in their eye
Pity the plight of young fellows
Regard all their worries and cry

Their Christian mothers were lazy perhaps
Leaving it up to the school
Where the moral perspective is hazy perhaps
And the climate oppressively cruel
Give me one acre of cellos
Pitched at some distant regret
Pity the fate of young fellows
And their anxious attempts to forget

[Sketch:]
[Speaker 1:] So you're the bad man that killed Kerbie yeah?
[Speaker 2:] Yeah
[1:] And that little girl yeah?
[2:] I didn't mean to kill her, it was an accident
[1:] Do you know who that girl was though?
[2:] [pause] Nah
[1:] That was my fucking sister
[3:] Chris man, just allow it
[1:] Don't tell me to fucking allow it, you don't fucking know me

[Verse 1 Plan B:]
These are the tears of a thug like murky water
Crying tears as clear as mud for his father's daughter
His half sister, he felt obliged to support her
Since her mum was poor and her dad died even poorer
Separated until she was eight years old
He knew as soon as he saw her that he adored her
So now he's paying for blood with a borer
And an automatic weapon; Smith And Wesson
That'd split a fucking hole in your chest length

He's been looking to corner the perpetrators responsible for a killing
Now that he's finally got them where he wants them
Blood will start spilling
The atmosphere in the air tonight is chilling
The blanket of stars above their heads in the sky feels like a ceiling
Slowly crushing down on them as the terror starts progressing
That leaves the youngest of the two open to his suggestion
Only thirteen years old; pubescent adolescent
About to learn a very harsh and depressing lesson

[Sketch:]
[1:] Here, stab him up. Do it!
[3:] Jake bruv, just, come on..
[2:] I can't, I can't do that
[1:] How the fuck do you think we got here?
How the fuck do you think I know where you live?
He offered to kill you earlier for me!
[2:] What
What so you set me up?!
Fucking talk to me bruv!
[1:] That's it, get mad!
[2:] You fucking used me bruv!
[3:] I didn't tell you to fucking kill her

[Verse 2 Plan B:]
These are the tears of a wanna-be thug
Crying tears as thick as blood cause his elders set him up
To take the fall and now he's stuck with no way of getting out
Cause even if there was a way he'd still want to vent this anger out
Without a doubt these street are rife with corruption
Young minds get corrupted and so easily fucked with
Only leads to destruction in the end; false assumptions
That people have your back makes you believe they're your friends
Although some represent; no one can be trusted

One double-O percent cause some thugs will go to lengths
To get revenge
Even if it means manipulating youths to carry skengs
And do the dirty work for them
The kind of work for men
That route the dark has past
Not impressionable young children that never had a chance
Growing up in these manors most are doomed from the start
Cause the minds of their peers are as ill as their hearts

[Sketch:]
[1:] Get mad
[2:] You fucking dickhead
[1:] Do it
[stabs him]

[Outro John Cooper Clarke:]
Pity the fates of young fellows
Too long in bed with no sleep
With their complex romantic attachments
All look on their sorrows and weep
They don't get a moment's reflection
There's always a crowd in their eye
Pity the plight of young fellows
Regard all their worries and cry