Another track from The Chilly Dogz second album with Marc Gordon on guitar and Roland Guitar Synth.  I wrote this after visiting a particular tower block in Swansea as part of my job as a social survey interviewer for ONS.  The dealers in the courtyard are really scary with their dogs just itching to get at you as you gingerly make your way to the lifts.  I was warned not to carry my laptop into the lift on my own on this estate, I did and luckily nothing happened but it is very representative of certain forgotten parts of the Coalition nightmare we all inhabit today.  Of course heroin has been rife in these areas for decades now….. as have the money lenders!

This is the story of the Modern Privateers

Be careful ‘cos it just might, fill you up with tears

The Lift it is broken

We gotta use the stairs

This is because

No-one fuckin’ cares

(about) Who makes all the laws

Or who owns all the shares

(and why) Public it’s yours

And private it’s theirs

Living up the tower

For at least another year

Giving loads of money

To some goddam privateer

Outside in the courtyard

Stands an illustrated man

With his heavy chained bull-terrier

And his new black windowed van

In the flats on all the balconies

The casements have gone rusty

All the winter rain gets in

The furniture smells musty

Legions of people living here

Just can’t take it for much more

They’re reduced to spending all their time

Scrabbling around to score

The illustrated man has

A friend named Sharkskin Jack

Who will always loan you money

When you need to buy some smack

But, when you borrow money

Off of men like Sharkskin Jack

No matter how much you give to them

You’ll not finish paying back

They’ll string you out upon their rack

For years and years and years

Those two bastards and the rentier

Are the modern Privateers.

Copyright: Harry Rogers, 24/05/2010