2. Blame It On Me - track two from "Head Above Water" by Marshlander

Blame It On Me

Blame it on me and call me unreliable

The country’s deep in debt and who else is to blame?

The evidence of my collusion seems to be deniable;

Multi-national interests play the banking game.

Let’s talk about debt.

You know the cash we need to borrow to pay off for stuff we’ve bought.

Straightforward and yet

We’ve got it all in such a muddle that a puddle becomes a lake 

 Then an ocean of sweat.

So the banker sells the debt on, like it really is a thing.

When everybody knows it’s all a scam.

Like a pass-the-parcel nobody would ever want to win.

Sell it on, breathe again.  Then you scram     And then you …. 

Let’s talk about home.

Supposed to be safe as a castle.  It’s modest, but it’s your own.  

The family grows.

You proudly watch as they grow older and before you know what’s happening This is what goes -

The place you’ve lived for forty years, you’re told is under-occupied.

You pay the tax or move, but there is nowhere to go.

The government has stitched you up and you know they mock you by

mishandling the shortfall.

Frankly no one wants to know and so you ….

Let’s talk about waste.

You know, the stuff that proves we’ve been here and that we don’t want to see.

Just flush it away

Or you bury it or burn it and the residue will turn up on your doorstep one day.

Money changes hands to make the most of our excess.

Profit for the greedy from our profligacy.

You’ll never see the fires burn in the gardens of the rich.

You're the one whose lungs are trashed.

Ain’t life a bitch.   So go on …

Let’s talk about tax.

You know the share that you and I give to the man to keep things smooth.

Let’s look at the facts -

You and me, we’re simply too small to set up in offshore havens 

Look at the list of names in the polling booth. 

Were we international would pay our share?

We’d register head office in a place where no one goes.

Amazon and Google, Starbucks and all the others

Tell us it’s all legal.  

Meanwhile everybody knows you’re gonna …

Let’s talk about health

When you’re feeling good it’s groovy.  You’re the king of all you see

Apportioning wealth - it’s a game but when you need help

You become a punter in a postcode lottery.

The NHS once shone like jewels in Britain’s post-war crown

On principle health treatment came for free

But now it’s nearly all sold off, you’d better not come down

With something you can’t treat yourself because you’ll soon see how they …

Blame it on me and call me unreliable

The country’s deep in debt and who else is to blame?

The evidence of my collusion seems to be deniable;

Multi-national interests play the banking game.

(Music and lyrics by Marshlander - all rights reserved)

Whatever goes wrong in society is always blamed on the people at the bottom of the pile. Unfortunately the last few years have proven that I could probably have written an extra verse to this every day. I have had to sit on my hands and force myself not to add verses about education, human rights, public transport, water companies, MPs' expenses, unemployment, climate change, the widening pay gap, electoral reform, species decline, plastic pollution ...

Once again this was a case of words first, melody next and then the chords. Originally the final chord was an Am. One night I sang it with a fine songwriter named Fraser in the audience, who suggested the Picardy third. It grew on me.