Tyrant: ruminations on a still (sadly) relevant theme

[eyepaddle]

Listening to an album from 1976 (Matcom should know this one) on the way into work this morning I listened to a song called Tyrant. You know whose name to fill in the lyrical blanks with people. Judas Proest, not commonly thought of as a band with meanigful lyrics, which is why listening to this was especially sobering. The more things change....

"I wouldn't say that there's no fantasy at all in our lyrics. Our lyrics are firmly bound to the present, but there's still a certain freedom in their organization which enables the listeners to include their own fantasy, their own experience, their environment. For example, I wrote a song with the title 'Tyrant'. In this piece I expressed my aversion towards any form of control, that is very concrete, but still the lyrics are chosen in such a way that the listener is able to find his own frustrations of this problem interpreted within this framework..."
- Rob Halford, Fachblatt Music Magazine, September 1976

Behold 'tis I the commander
Whose grip controls you all
Resist me not, surrender
I'll no compassion call

(Tyrant) Capture of humanity
(Tyrant) Conqueror of all
(Tyrant) Hideous destructor
(Tyrant) Every man shall fall

Your very lives are held within my fingers
I snap them and you cower down in fear
You spineless things who belly down to slither
To the end of the world you follow to be near

Mourn for us oppressed in fear
Chained and shackled we are bound
Freedom choked in dread we live
Since Tyrant was enthroned

I listen not to sympathy
Whilst ruler of this land
Withdraw your feeble aches and moans
Or suffer smite from this my hand

My legions faithful unto death
I'll summon to my court
And as you perish each of you
Shall scream as you are sought