Kae Tempest - Teen's Speech lyrics

These days youth is worshipped
Projected as divine it's hungered for
Constructed, age is coming for us
We're clutching on to magazines
To offer all the tactics
To prolong the prime
And so we're saving up for surgery
Forcing our bodies back through time

While images of youth permeate the city
And they germinate within us
Make us pity age and
Hate ourselves for ageing
While ten-year-olds are increasingly
Impatient for their golden teenage years
Desperate for puberty to make them grown
'Cause it's depicted as so glamorous
So now we're amorous
For scandalous accounts of teenage parents
Young addictions, dysfunctions
Or depictions of the violence


Rampant on our country's streets

We've objectified the youth
So we don't hear them when they speak

And the whole of Britain is obsessed
It seems, with teens and how they live
They're fascinating
'Cause they've still got time
To do something with their young minds

But here's the rift
These days kids are either demonised
Or exalted, either painfully shy
Or ferocious, either bursting with ambition
Or beaten down and hopeless
Absorbing our examples and
Our manufactured neuroses

But they're not a grainy CCTV hoodie
Or an episode of skins they're just people
Like we all are
With nervous grins and awkward limbs

Some are young carers
Looking after parents with depression
And some are getting bullied
Trying not to let people's
Ignorance upset them
While some are sitting in their bedrooms
Just unmotivated, lazy
Signing on every fortnight
Thinking "I wish someone had
Made me see before how hard it is
To get back in to a
System you've dropped out of"
While some are striving to be happy
Doing things they're really proud of
See they're not generic
They're not all aggressive
Loitering by cash dispensers

Some are young mums
Holding down good jobs at Marks and Spencers
Some are out stealing everything they
Can get away with stealing
And some are supporting younger siblings
Off the profit's made from dealing
Some are learning what their morals are
Through exploring their sensations
While some are shouldering responsibilities
In quiet resignation
Some enjoy their education
Just like some rebel against it
Some are fierce about their territory
And would do anything to defend it

And yes some of them are
Blazing skunk and boozing
Most will take a punch for moving
In a different way
But it makes us who we are
And some prey on weakness
Like some protect it
Some are lost and disaffected
Some are hungry for successes
They want something and they're out to get it
Some are exhibitionists
Others want to stay hidden
Luckily most are sick and tired
Of prejudice and racism
But some face prison with the prison-face
They're excited at the prospect
And some are grappling with concepts
Writing essays, making grades
Some are playing games on their computers
Totally absorbed in an artificial world
'Cause in the real one they're just bored

Yeah some hate, and some get hated
And some find this inexcusable and some
They hate themselves because they're sure
That they're not beautiful enough
And so they stuff themselves
Or starve themselves, and hate themselves
And harm themselves
While some are moving through life quietly
With a heart that swells with happiness

Compassionate or self involved and arrogant
They're on their way to dropping out of
Or buying into the establishment
'Cause they're just people
At a stage of life that
Everyone must go through

Some of them are bound for greatness
Some of them are bound to waste it
Just like every generation that has been
And all those still to come

They've got the potential
To change everything, and we love them
'Cause they're still so young