From little-known Australian band MaxQ, here we have 1989’s Way of the World, a prescient little ditty about the way we all get screwed over by the psychopaths in charge of this ball of mud. I loved this song when it came out, and the more politically aware I’ve become the more pertinent it seems than back in ’89, a time when most people saw all this talk of evil corporations as the ramblings of a demented hippie.

MaxQ was a short lived group headed by Ollie Olsen and Michael Hutchence of INXS, and even though the single was a minor hit the album tanked and hasn’t been re-released since. So if you like it, get it on YouTube cos the CD is an expensive rarity and iTunes doesn’t seem to carry it — but what can you expect from acorporation that originally gave iPods batteries that died in 18 months and couldn’t be replaced except through the purchase of a new iPod?

 

Lyrics below video

 

You are born into this world
Looking down the barrel of a gun
And those who hold the gun
Want you to work fast and die young
And if you don’t work
If you don’t obey
They’ll make you live in fear till your dying day
Those who govern hold the gun to your head
With religions, corporations, proud of blood
They’ve shed
CHORUS:
Whether it’s God or the bomb
It’s just the same
It’s only fear under another name
(x2)
And the corporate snakes coming in to feed
On that pathetic fact known as human greed
Skin and bone being raked over those hot coals
This dump never seems to give time for human soul
And all those things that we have learnt
No time for questions, you’ll just get burnt
You’ll just get burnt
(CHORUS x2)
And those words crush you flat
Like your skull’s under a brick
And the fear’s so damnned strong
That it makes you sick
And you can see right through those eyes
That make you fear, that make you lie
And you’re taught to hold high
Yet you wonder why
Dumb values forced upon you by the
Living lie