BY SAM GILLIES AND ANDREW MESSENGER
The anger and gnashing of teeth that has followed our new Prime Minister’s inevitably brutal budget has left many at a loss. We know we’ve had trouble getting to sleep; such is our constant twitching rage at massive cuts to health, education, and the arts to fund tax cuts for Gina Reinhardt.
Now, one way people have tried to work out this frustration has been productive: protesting on the street with the aim of forcing the government to reverse direction. Here at CutCommon, we take a strong stand against using our time constructively. As a result, we’re devised an alternative outlet for the pure rage that, we’re sure, is coursing through your very veins: a sick playlist.
Frank Zappa: Trouble Everyday
‘Well I’m about to get up sick
From watchin my TV
Been checkin’ out the news
Until my eyeballs fail to see
I mean to say that every day
Is just another rotten mess
And when it’s gonna change, my friend
Is anybody’s guess’
Ok so this was originally written about the Watts Riots in America in 1965, and racial tension in general. But lets be honest, don’t these lyrics perfectly reflect the merry-go-round of broken promises and the state of politics in general?
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5
Beethoven’s symphony contains perhaps the four most famous notes in the Western canon, three of them the same note! Beethoven’s Five is heard throughout the world – just like the laments of the victims of a massive budget cut to Australia’s foreign aid budget will.
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10, Movement 2
A truly brutal piece of music; jagged, angular and uncompromising. Almost as uncompromising as scrapping bulk-billed treatment under Medicare.
Mozart: Requiem
One of the finest composers in history, Mozart was buried in a peasant’s grave when he died in 1791. Just like the many students and unemployed people who rely upon the Newstart Allowance are likely to be, as their major source of income is cut in half.
Frank Sinatra: My Way
The perfect song for an apparent megalomaniac who has unaccountably found himself in charge of the nation’s finances. I’m sure this would have been one of the numbers the Honorable (sic) Joe Hockey crooned at the swanky after-party event to celebrate the occasion of an 80 billion dollar cut to health and education – at least, he may have sung the Sinatra classic after his office dancing session to ‘Best Night of My Life’ after signing a document that will cut over 100 million dollars from the CSIRO.
Suicide: Frankie Teardrop
‘Frankie Teardrop
Twenty year old Frankie
He’s married he’s got a kid
And he’s working in a factory
He’s working from seven to five
He’s just trying to survive
Well lets hear it for Frankie
Frankie Frankie’
Suicide’s tragic ode to the struggling Frankie still haunts the dreams of many today. And with reports that 60 per cent of the spending cuts and revenue measures in this budget set to be copped by lower and middle income earners, we could well see more Frankies than ever before.
Thom Yorke – Black Swan
‘People get crushed like biscuit crumbs
And laid down in the bed you made
And it’s fucked up, fucked up
And this is fucked up, fucked up’
Thom Yorke is here to remind us that ultimately we the public need to claim responsibility for the Liberals abolishing several renewable energy programs and promoting their reportedly ineffective direct action program.
Throbbing Gristle: Persuasion
‘Now there’s lots of ways to persuade you
I could do it with money, I could look at you
I could show you all that
You might as well do it anyway
You might as well choose to play the game’
Team Abbott’s urging of an impending debt crisis has failed to persuade several key economic groups who have urged against excessive spending cuts.
The Who – Won’t Get Fooled Again
‘I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
And I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
Don’t get fooled again’
Won’t Get Fooled Again casts a cynical eye over the post-revolution order as it becomes unsettlingly similar to the pre-revolution order. When we return to the polls ahead of Liberals spruiking how much they’ve done to improve the quality of life in Australia, let’s not get fooled again.
Image: Wikimedia Commons. Credit: Arria Belli.
