What We Lost

[Ray Brookes]

The subtle Chinese sounding instrumentation is intentional ...

Today's headlines soon forgotten
Yesterday's news, yesterday's plans
The factory gates now closed and rotten
Graffiti sprayed by the teenage gangs

This river tainted, this forest fallen,
This air is still this soil now dust
Houses unpainted, babies bawling
Factories closed, machines are rust.

This family counts for nothing
But the lap top counts the cost.
While we stand here looking broken
At what we had and what we lost.

Today's headlines soon forgotten
Yesterday's news, yesterday's war.
All the schemes, all the plotting,
So more jobs disappear offshore.

And we look through positions vacant
Hopes are low but fingers crossed
Stare forlornly across the tracks
At what we had and what we lost.

"Foreign goods are cheap what's wrong?"
But the words are bitter cold as frost
The suited man on the TV
Tries to hide exactly what we lost.

[StephenM]

the music is so incredibly great.  The mix is perfect.  Your productions always are superb.  Also you seem to be getting better.

the vocals are always drawing me close. 

the hunger is evident in the voice telling a necessary story the story teller would rather not tell.

sigh

[Ted]

I detect a nod to Robert Burns' "To a Mouse" - the best laid plans – an unsustainable economic system. Beautiful production, reminiscent of "Fortress Around Your Heart." But where Sting's ruins are metaphorical, you sing of literal ruins. "The suited man on the TV" mirrors imperialist apologists, who hid or dismissed the wreckage and the human toll while pushing a narrative of glory and providence. And now this predatory system has come for its heretofore beneficiaries. The man on TV always speaks for the winners (whoever the current winners may be), points to a scapegoat (whoever is convenient), and blames the victim.

Whew! Good morning from Madagascar! Haven't even finished my coffee yet.

[StephenM]

Babies bawling...

lyrics from "Snakes In A Cradle"
your 2nd post on the site.  I remember it well..
such an impact on my soul that recording.  you do it so well and so often.
glad I get to hear your stuff as I feel I kind of know you now.

not really but the parts you show in your music... wonderful Ray.

https://songcrafters.org/forum/index.php?msg=354341

[Johnbee]

Brilliant production.  Compelling lyric line.

  John B

[TPB]

The production is so so clear I love it alway love to hear what you come up with
Bravo brother
Tim

[DarrenG / The Devil's Toupee]

Awesome song Ray, music and production is so good as always. I get the story you're trying to tell here, an all too familiar one. The use of the Chinese instrumentation is very clever, subtly clever.