Pillars of Society is his debut album, and prompted Rolling Stone Magazine to claim "arguably the best protest album ever made in Australia' as well as proclaim Kev to be "Australia's Black Bob Dylan"

This is the Song Cycles (Kev's own record label) reissue.

Pillars of Society
 

Pillars of Society

 

The pillars of society 
Cruise down the road each day;
They got the economic wherewithall 
We can’t afford to pay 
They got numbered bank accounts 
Their system assures they win 
They exploit the population we on the outside lookin’ in

CHORUS 
Them pillars of society 
Drive us like a tool 
To them that cool

They drive Mercedes Benz and Porsches 
Live Rolls Royce gilt-edged lives 
You can tell the affluent effluent 
By the status symbols that they drive 
When you on the dole queue 
They tell you to your face 
You a bludger on their system 
And a blight on the human race

They grace the social pages 
Always make the news 
At the church on Sunday 
They crowd in the front pews 
There’s a hierachy of dominace 
With the power at the top 
If you think you’ve found the magic key 
You’ll find they’ve changed the locks

Walkin’ down the freeway 
On their dotted line 
We’d like to make decisions 
But they won’t allow the time 
It’s said religion is the opium 
I say the media’s the cocaine 
24 hours of propanganda 
druggin’ my poor brain

They confer titles of status and dominance 
On their progeny and their class 
"sir" – "Your honour" – 
"Your Grace" – "Your Highness" – 
We’re made to polish
And lick their____brass 
But you my friend can be like them 
If you have their million dollar fee 
But you’ll find their system’s designed 
To keep us in line 
And walkin’ on our knees
 

Jack Deelin’

 

Jack Deelin went a walkin’ 
Upon a market day 
From half mile outside the town on foot he made his way 
Once a week he had a job 
At the saleyards draftin’ stock 
Half the price of the standard wage 
And a feed was what he got

CHORUS 
Jack Deelin how we gonna win 
When we’re guilty of their darkest crime 
Of bein’ zipped up in Black skin?

We livin’ on the fringes 
Far below the standard line 
They say our heritage is dead and gone 
They bury it back in time 
We’re exiled in the very land 
Of our ancestors and gods 
Pushed back across our hunting grounds 
And shot down like a dog

There’s genocide upon our child 
Our women were raped and beat 
The law’ll slam you in a cell 
For just bein’ on the street 
We’re livin’ in the river beds 
And in the urban slums 
They give us that tag of lazy cats 
That won’t get off our bums

They term us jet black or hybrid 
Well it matters nothin much 
We’re black that’s that we’re third rate 
And they treatin’ us as such 
They mail us welfare handouts 
And fed us on sheep guts 
They satisfied their conscience 
We won’t bite the breast we suck
 

Flagstone Creek

 

Gotta brand new brother 
Down on Flagstone Road 
Who sees more to life 
Than bein’ bought and sold 
With acres of trees 
And wildlife crowdin’ his back door

CHORUS 
Like sunshine 
Through the mists of a mountain morn 
Into my insecure basic blue 
When you’re slammed on the floor 
Our of reach of the door
And this woman bends softly 
and whispers to you

Lean on me brother 
Let this sister take your heavy load 
Lean on me brother 
Let this sister take your load

When I get lost and I am tired and worn 
I use his hillside haven to calm my storm 
It’s a better medication 
Than them empty brown bottles of booze

Moonlight peekin’ over the crested hill 
Evenin’ breeze pushin’ at the window sill
There’s the silhoutted shadow 
Of a night owl on the moon

When ya dissillusioned 
Ya hard, when ya cheated you’re shy 
Whats one mans facts 
Is just another mans lies 
You’re constantly searching 
For a thief in a new disguise

 

Attack Attack

 

If you are a workin’ class woman 
If your socialist, unemployed or black 
If you support redistribution of wealth 
We’re under Attack-Attack-Attack 
From this system’s new right 
Who worship power and might 
Who wanta purge the ‘pinks’ 
An’ anyone who thinks

CHORUS

"Be born, be silent, consume and die" 
We can shatter this cycle 
If we collectively try 
Attack-Attack-Attack fight back

We gotta go through the window 
The new rights locked the door 
Like an expo landlord 
They keep the powerless poor 
We pay our P.A.Y.E taxes 
So the elite and the yuppie D.I.N.K.S 
Can drink champagne – eat caviar 
See how they think?

It’s easy to see 
What this new right’s doin’ 
Control our destiny 
An’ collapse our Unions 
Privatize our existence 
Abolish our free medical centres 
Control every door 
Through which we must enter 
Under the old guise to: Rationalize, Objectivize-Privatize-Fanticize Harmonize-Economize-Democratize? 
All new right lies 
Iron out the kinks (that’s us)

They want to celebrate 
Their invasion of 1788 
The whiplash on each convict’s back 
The theft of our land 
From each black woman and man 
Power is their passion 
Their sexist, racist system stinks 
They seek to celebrate subjugation 
And their imperialist colonial links

If your a workin’ class woman 
If you socialist, unemployed or black 
If you support redistribution of wealth 
We’re under Attack-Attack-Attack 
From this system’s new right 
Who worship power and might
Who wanta purge the ‘pinks’ 
And anyone who thinks
 

Thou Shalt Not Steal

 

In 1788 down Sydney Cove 
The first boat-people land 
Said sorry boys our gain’s your loss 
We gonna steal your land 
And if you break our new British laws 
For sure you’re gonna hang 
Or work your life like convicts 
With chains on your neck and hands

CHORUS 
They taught us 
Oh Oh Black woman thou shalt not steal 
Oh Oh Black man thou shalt not steal 
We’re gonna civilize 
Your Black barbaric lives 
And teach you how to kneel 
But your history couldn’t hide 
The genocide 
The hypocrisy to us was real 
’cause your Jesus said 
you’re supposed to give the oppressed 
a better deal 
We say to you yes whiteman thou shalt not steal 
Oh ya our land you’d better heal

Your science and technology Hey you can make a nuclear bomb 
Development has increased the size to 3,000,000 megatons 
But if you think that’s progress 
I suggest your reasoning is unsound 
You shoulda found out long ago 
You best keep it in the ground

Job and me and Jesus sittin’ 
Underneath the Indooroopilly bridge
Watchin’ that blazin’ sun go down 
Behind the tall tree’d mountain ridge 
The land’s our heritage and spirit 
Here the rightful culture’s Black 
and we sittin’ here just wonderin’ 
When we get the land back

You talk of conservation
Keep the forest pristine green 
Yet in 200 years your materialism 
Has stripped the forests clean 
A racist’s a contradiction 
That’s understood by none 
Mostly their left hand hold a bible 
Their right hand holds a gun
 

Comrade Jesus Christ

 

He was born in Asia Minor 
A colonized Jewish man 
His father the village carpenter 
Worked wood in his occupied land
He was apprenticed to his father’s trade
His country paid it’s dues 
To the colonial Roman conquerors
He was a working-class Jew

Though conceived three months out of wedlock 
The stigma never stuck
He began a three year public life
But he never made a buck
Because he spoke out against injustice 
Saw that capitalism bled the poor
He attacked self-righteous hypocrites 
And he condemned the lawyers’ law

But they’ve commercialised his birthday now 
The very people he defied
And they’ve sanctified their system
And claim he’s on their side!
But if he appeared tomorrow
He’d still pay the highest cost
Being a ‘radical agitator’ 
They’d still nail him to a cross

You see
He’d stand with the down trodden masses
Identify with the weak and oppressed
He’d condemn the hypocrites in church pews
And the affluent, arrogant West
He’d oppose Stalinist totalitarianism
The exploitation of millions by one
And ‘peace’ through mutual terror
And diplomacy from the barrel of a gun

He’d fight with Joe Hill and Waleca
Mandala and Friere
Try to free the third world’s millions
From hunger and despair
He’d stand with the peasants 
At the pock-marked walls 
They’d haul him in on bail
He’d condemn all forms of apartheid
And he’d rot in their stinking jails.

He’d denounce all dictatorships 
And Mammon’s greed 
And the exploitation of others for gain
He’d oppose the nuclear madness 
And the waging of wars in his name 
He’d mix with prostitutes and sinners
Challenge all to cast the first stone 
A compassionate agitator
One of the greatest the world has known

He’d condemn all corrupt law and order 
Tear man made hierarchies down 
He’d see status and titles as dominance
And the politics of greed he’d hound
He’d fight against 
The leagues of the Ku Klux Klan
And the radical, racist right
One of the greatest humanitarian socialists
Was comrade, 
Jesus Christ.
 

Black Deaths in Custody

 

There’s one Black brother dead 
Down in the Roebourne jail
One black martyr crucified
The cops drove in the nails 
200 years of custody
We not allowed no bail
How do you face the mornings
When this injustice still prevails

CHORUS 
Show me the justice 
To be had here in this land
Show me the justice for every Black human being
Show us Blacks the justice
In this White democracy
When you can execute us without a trial
While we held in custody

One black brother gunned down
Inside the Moree town
The communities across this land we
Mourned as they laid him down 
200 years we been forced
to stand beg outside the door 
the system treats the symptoms
it never attacks the cause

There’s a black brother killed
in a Brewarrina prison cell 
200 years we been beaten down
200 years of hell
clamped in chains worked like slaves
never got a fee
how can you say it’s justice 
with his killers runnin’ free?

One black brothers dead
Down on too many jailhouse floors;
Beaten down and sacrificed
Before the British law 
200 years you celebrate a heritage of shame 
you stole the land from which we’re banned —
left us walkin’ in the rain
 

White Bourgeois Woman

 

He fell for her in ’85
It was a vertical drop 
Restless nights n sheets of white 
The passion never stopped 
She studied to be a lawyer
He couldn’t break the spell 
Two years of frenzied passion
Then a descent into hell

CHORUS 
Oh, white bourgeois woman 
Change your cultural mentality
You’ve experience but a fraction 
Of our Black reality
When you seek your liberation
Clasp a firm Black guiding hand
We say Black in fact’s the colour
And the Spirit of this land 
White bourgeois woman

Most men encounter one woman
For whom they’d die or kill
Rot in a stinkin’ dungeon
Or be shackled against their will
She was such a woman 
She stood far above a man
She conquered all academia
But she never knew this land

The pain of her rejection
Nailed him to the floor
Left him wanderin’ on the freeway
Still beggin’ her for more
She cast him off with disdain
She treated him as shit 
She cast him off intellectually
Against the desire of her clit

He turned his face against the wind
—-towards the sunset of the land
she’s gone so long and now she’s found 
a white brand new bourgeois man 
she feels the need for companionship
and comfort in the night
they’ve a culture there in common
they’re not racially oppressed
they’re white
bourgeois woman,
 

Twisted Rail

 

Fast Willie’s on the corner 
Tryin’ to make a kill
He’s got this inclination
She wants a $50 bill

CHORUS 
Life can be hard trackin’
When yoo’re runnin’ out on a twister rail
I keep hopin’ that that mornin’ wind 
Come blow my blues away

Malcolm’s got a razor and a 
Jack-knife up his leg
He’s a friend of crooked Louis
Who can’t lay straight in bed

Well I work all week for money 
skippin’ meals to get ahead
I find the Federal Taxman 
Come and eats up all my bread

Blind Arnold’s highly anxious
It’s a sad predicament
He’s made it to the pay-loo door 
But found his penny bent

The magistrate is constipated
This ‘aint my lucky day
They slammed me in the prison cell 
And they throwed the key away

Sexy Sandra drives me crazy 
She keeps begging me for more
I see nothin’ through her key-hole
‘cept her old man’s pugnozed 44

I staggers home this evenin’ 
She meets me at the door
With a rollin’ pin and Pinscher dog 
She pounds me to the floor

CHORUS
 

Black Bess

 

Black Bess in White light 
All covered in blue 
Now she trips out on cocaine 
’cause there’s nothin to do 
since his man in’ his gland
they up an’ shot through
you lose most in lovin’
you win only a few

CHORUS 
Time Lord it drags heavy on me
Sad evenin’s alone and my thoughts are on she
I fear that down here you seldom can see
Do you have an idea what lonely can be?

His delight at the sight 
Of a worn apple skin
Goes with his hat in his hand 
To the next rubbish tin
He’s consoled by the role
That his bottle will bring
Means as much to his being
As a throne to a king

See he with his ego
on his own shadow fall
Saw a caged man with his bare hands
Bust through a brick wall
For 45 years of his life
He had shorn 
Then he wakes up one mornin’ to find his life gone

Frankie’s Vietnam was spent dodgin’ lead
But eventually the enemy blew off his head
His weight was a feather as they carried him in
One half of a friend 
They sent home in a tin