Gareth Liddiard - The Radicalisation of D lyrics

A young boy busts his dad's Hills
Hoist using it as a swing
Kills a magpie in the backyard
With a homemade ging
Steals chlorine from the
Neighbour's swimming pool
And puts it in a coffee jar
And pours brake fluid in
He makes a pipe bomb using match heads
And it fizzles when he runs
He tries again using the powder from the
Shells of his old man's shotgun
And it hisses like the feral cat he's seen
- slithers like the snake he killed
Leaves a scorch mark on the pavement
And he's badly beaten for it
He finds a Playboy on the way to
School - tries remembering his Mum
He throws rocks at a girl he likes
And he's sent home before lunch
Finds a King Kong doll beneath a bush


- it's probably some rich kid's
But it roars ants when he shakes it
So he drops it in a bin
It gets late and dinner time comes - he
Makes tinned beans on white Tip Top
He halves it with his fingers and
Then shares it with the dog
Jumps a cyclone fence to the sound of
His old man fucking through the evening
Finds a severed kangaroo hind leg
Just laying in a clearing
And there's a tendon or a tapeworm
That retracts after a kick
He finds a new stink nearly makes him puke
When he pokes it with a stick
He meets a friend near there - they go
To see his house just down the road
His sister lets them in
Goes back upstairs wearing a bathrobe
He sees a Phillishave full of hair clippings
In a bathroom near a bra
They find some car keys
Go outside and search a V8 car
And there's a Beta tape in a
Paper bag hid under a seat
They hit play on the VCR machine
And start to hear flute music
Now there's two girls on a farm
Somewhere playing with a labrador
Which rolls onto it's back like it
Has been through this before
And it's the last time D hears flute music
The last time he thinks about girls
He sneaks home about 10 o'clock
Gets inside using the dog door
Channel 7 gets the scoop again -
There's a man gone crazy
He stole an APC from the army base
And closed down half the city
But D's been expelled from school and
He's quite happy staying in bed
He keeps track of all the updates
Surfing networks instead
And this tank arrives at police HQ about 8am
It makes pancakes out of 5 or
6 patrol cars and then
Runs out of diesel near
A Castrol service station
And there's a standoff
And he's teargassed and not heard of again
D's father dies of cancer
The next Christmas day
He's so hopped up on the morphine that he
Can't get straight
He says "Be proud of me my boy
Well I am finally off the fags
Since they caught me upstairs
Smoking on the helipad"
They cut the tumor off his liver
But he died without it
It seems like no one gets to
Choose what they can't live without
It don't matter about money when
There ain't no way around
You are living in a nightmare you
Can't bribe your way out of

D finds a one room flat
That overlooks an underpass
He works part time as a labourer
And it's OK though it's hard
Then some black kid steals
His concession card
And beats him 'round the head
Next time D sees an army surplus
Store he steals a bayonet
Then one day the bus to work knocks
Down the kid that held him up
He dies laying in the street - the
Driver don't make too much fuss
He smokes a ciggie with the cops
- the ambulance is running late
And something inside D finds all this very
Very strange and soon after that
The work dries up and D starts drinking hard
Starts drinking cheap cask wine with the old
Black fellas living in the park
One has a tattoo of a
Swastika made with candle, soap and spoons
He says he's half caste and that
Full bloods prefer petrol over goon
He says he was brought up on a mission
Then became a Viet Vet
He ain't got a single tooth to chew
So D gives him his bayonet
He's got white scars between his knuckles or
What's left of them and says "You see
I'm white too - I just cannot drink
Inside the way you like to"

Five years later D meets Werner
At a rifle range
Werner's granddad was SS so now
He goes by the nickname
Werner the Jew Burner and young
D become so tight
They start going bush in his Landcruiser
Living on roos they shoot spotlighting
They get a year's lease on a duplex
Werner finds D some work as
An unlicensed forklift driver in a
Fish market for cash
Where he's got pictures of Adolf Hitler
Antique copies of Mein Kampf
But D thinks Hitler's obsolete
And Werner's practice too relaxed
But Werner finished high school
And then studied engineering
D never did finish school
And Werner breaks the news that evening
The RAAF say they accept his application
To be trained to work on
Hercules' 2000 miles away
He leaves tomorrow for New South Wales
And throws a party late that night
They get to drinking and they're talking
Then they argue, then they fight
D comes to bleeding in his bedroom
Begging Werner not to go
But Werner's full weight's on his back now
And he's face down in a pillow

D wakes up late next afternoon
But Werner is long gone
He tries to find his 22 -
There ain't no shells at all
He finds 5 Valium in a Winfield pack
In a duffel bag in the hall
He sit's down front of the TV screen
Washes it all down with a bottle
Cliff has a beautiful wife -
He's insured for his life
And it is autumn here
In Brooklyn in obstetrics, labour pain
And though his roots here are in slavery
Cliff is dressed himself by slaves
And credit's rise like you're collapsing
So bewilderingly fast
It seems the Cosbys of the world
All go to bed 11 sharp
And the rest of you have a choice
Of late night news and more commercials
Yeah Just Do It, Have a Break, yeah
Life Is Good Because You're Worthless
And Maybe She Was Born With It
And maybe you were too
It seems like one way or the other
There ain't much of nothing you can do
And you can only go as far as
Denying that you haven't come anywhere
Forget Charles Darwin's namesake is
Surrounded with black hair
You are depressed now but need only
Take this pill to ban despair
And if East Timor can't be middle class
It can't really be there
And you are driving the Jeep Cherokee
That burns Arabs for fuel
But, you are driving the Jeep Cherokee
And that's good enough for you
And you are living among taxpayers who
Welcome brown folks with a moat
Conducting policy with the one free hand
While the other's round their throats
And you are living in a land besieged by
What the world might think or know
But with it's head so deep in Turkish sand
This can't really be so
And you are living in a nightmare
- let them balkanize the East
No one says a word these days
They turn the other cheek
And you are living in a nightmare -
You can't trust a ceasefire bid
And any wall they build around Gaza
Will be begging for a lid
And you are living in a nightmare -
You can't bribe a want of doubt
And you are living in a nightmare you
Can't bribe your way out of
And you are living in a nightmare you
Can't bribe your way out of
And you are living in a nightmare you
Can't bribe your way out of
You are living in a nightmare you
Can't bribe your way out of
You are living in a nightmare you
Can't bribe your way out of
You are living in a nightmare you
Can't bribe your way out of
You are living in a nightmare you
Can't bribe your way out of

But we interrupt this broadcast just
To bring you breaking news
There is a building in
Manhattan and it's burning