“Let’s not talk of love and flowers and things that don’t explode.”
(For Bill Ayers, who switched from “infantile Leftist” to successful practitioner of 5GW.)
I’m an urban guerrilla
I make bombs in my cellar
I’m a derelict dweller
I’m a potential killer
I’m a street fighting dancer
I’m a revolutionary romancer
My rising sign is Cancer
I’m a two-tone panther
So let’s not talk of love and flowers
And things that don’t explode
We’ve used up all of our magic powers
Trying to do it in the road
I’m a political bandit
And you don’t understand it
You took my dream and canned it
It is not the way I planned it
I’m society’s destructor
I’m a petrol bomb constructor
I’m a cosmic light conductor
I’m the people’s debt collector
So watch out Mr. Business Man
Your empire’s about to blow
I think you’d better listen, man
In case you did not know
I’m an urban, an urban guerrilla
I’m an urban, an urban guerrilla
I’m an urban, an urban guerrilla
I’m an urban, an urban guerrilla
Alright
Listen
You’ve gotta stay cool, now
You’ve gotta stay cool
You’ve gotta stay cool
You’ve gotta stay cool
You’ve gotta stay cool
You’ve gotta stay cool, ’cause I think you’re gonna blow it
You’ve gotta stay cool when you’re walkin’ on the streets now
You’ve gotta stay cool when you’re lookin’ in the alleyway
You’ve gotta stay cool when you’re creepin’ in those office blocks
You’ve gotta stay cool when you’re lurkin’ in the factory
You’ve gotta stay cool, got a machine gun in my hand
You’ve gotta stay cool I wanna blow up all the …
You’ve gotta stay cool, got a hand grenade
You’ve gotta stay cool …
You’ve gotta stay cool, I’m a potential bomb constructor man
You’ve gotta stay cool, I’m an urban guerrilla, man
You’ve gotta stay cool, lurkin’ in the factory
You’ve gotta stay cool when you’re creepin’ in those office blocks
You’ve gotta stay cool, got to, got to, got to stay
You’ve gotta stay cool, got to, got to, got to stay
You’ve gotta stay cool, got to, got to, got to stay
You’ve gotta stay cool, you’ve got to stay cool now
You’ve gotta stay cool, you’ve got to stay cool now
I’m an urban guerrilla
I make bombs in my cellar
I’m a derelict dweller
I’m a potential killer
I’m a street fighting dancer
I’m a revolutionary romancer
My rising sign is Cancer
I’m a two-tone panther
So watch out Mr. Business Man
Your empire’s about to blow
I think you’d better listen, man
In case you did not know
I’m an urban, an urban guerrilla
I’m an urban, an urban guerrilla
I’m an urban, an urban guerrilla
I’m an urban, an urban guerrilla
For mindless leftism I always preferred Bob Dylan’s Masters of War or Ballad of the Thin Man. And for missing the point completely I’d suggest Volunteers by Jefferson Airplane but in any case never play Oingo Boingo’s Capitalism in polite company.
I’m anonymous but I did identify myself and it disappeared!
“…mindless leftism …”
Your results may differ, but I think Hawkwind were mocking or at least retaining ironic distance from the would-be urban guerillas. That is why the song works.
“Volunteers” is a great song, and like many from that era, deep down, very stoopid.
Dylan was always Dylan-being-Dylan first, and only a distant second “about” anything. As Dylan put it “if I wasn’t Bob Dylan, I’d probably think Bob Dylan had a lot of answers.”