Please let me introduce myself, I’m simply a man of our time
Confused and bewildered, I seem to live without reason nor rhyme
Betrayed by a system, I’d given up trying to change
Let me tell you now for nothing, I’m back in the game

I’ve gorged on the knowledge, feasted on the digital feed
I’ve discerned through my wisdom that all cannot be believed
I’ve reached the conclusion that we have all been deceived
And that our freedoms and democracy are not what they seem

Weltschmerz, weltschmerz, weltschmerz

I am a grey-bearded warrior, a poet of no mean acclaim
My words are my weapons that I proffer with disdain
My melancholy aspect is something you can’t disregard
My motives you cannot question, nor my strong sense of right and wrong

I’ve formed the opinion that things can’t stay as they are
My anger and my fury trapped like a wasp in a jar
It’s never too late to make a brave new start
When the revolution is called I will play my part

Weltschmerz, weltschmerz, weltschmerz

There was a time my moral compass was spinning out of control
I retired from the barricades, dug myself a very deep hole
I came to in a country I once considered a home
That has been lost to the scoundrels and the rogues and a circus of clowns

The heavens roll thunder, I raise my face to the rain
With my feet in cold ashes of all that remains
If we’d listened to the children and heeded their call
Risen to the challenge at an earlier bell

The fight isn’t over, this war still has to be won
On an unlevel playing field, the conflicts rage on
Stand up to be counted, stand up to be heard
Stand up at the barricades stand up for your world

Weltschmerz – the homeless and starving
Weltschmerz – the bombed and the burnt
Weltschmerz – the poor and the lonely
Weltschmerz – the forgotten and spurned

The shells of cathedrals, the yellowing grass
The plum dark tornadoes, fluttering flags
The queues at the foodbanks, the raging typhoons
The gangs on the corner, the shadows that groom
The fading of dahlias, the forests of fire
The walls in the desert

The rapture is near