Post by petrolino on Dec 28, 2019 0:13:21 GMT
10,000 Maniacs
'In 1806, while visiting his parents on upper Chautauqua Lake, James Prendergast first envisioned the future for the extensive pine forests covering the Southern Chautauqua Region. Recognizing the potential for water power at the lake’s outlet, Prendergast returned in 1811 and cleared an area for his family settlement. By the end of that year, Prendergast had built and was operating the region’s first dam and sawmill in the area of the present BPU Light Plant Facility.
Within two years, other settlers had been attracted to the area in search of opportunities afforded by the new frontier. In 1812, a blacksmith shop began operation and a year later Phineas Palmiter founded a small wood furniture operation, the forerunner of Jamestown’s world renowned furniture industry.
During the clearing of the land for agricultural and small industrial purposes, the abundant forests were utilized virtually as a “cash crop” employer. Hardwood too heavy to float downstream and too expensive to transport overland to market was burned and the ash leeched to obtain lye and “pearl ash”, an important component in the manufacture of glass products. By the mid 1820’s, the area became one of the largest centers in North America for the production of pearl ash.As a result of this distinction, Jamestown became known as the “The Pearl City”.
In 1815, the Hamlet was named Jamestown in honor of its first settler, James Prendergast, and by 1827 was officially incorporated as a village. Within a decade, industry was flourishing in the production of various lumber and wood products. New crafts and skills were brought to the region in the mid-century years by an influx of Swedish settlers and the village continued to prosper and diversify with contributions from immigrants of predominantly Italian, Irish and English backgrounds. In 1886, with a population around 15,000, Jamestown received its charter as a city by the State of New York.'
Within two years, other settlers had been attracted to the area in search of opportunities afforded by the new frontier. In 1812, a blacksmith shop began operation and a year later Phineas Palmiter founded a small wood furniture operation, the forerunner of Jamestown’s world renowned furniture industry.
During the clearing of the land for agricultural and small industrial purposes, the abundant forests were utilized virtually as a “cash crop” employer. Hardwood too heavy to float downstream and too expensive to transport overland to market was burned and the ash leeched to obtain lye and “pearl ash”, an important component in the manufacture of glass products. By the mid 1820’s, the area became one of the largest centers in North America for the production of pearl ash.As a result of this distinction, Jamestown became known as the “The Pearl City”.
In 1815, the Hamlet was named Jamestown in honor of its first settler, James Prendergast, and by 1827 was officially incorporated as a village. Within a decade, industry was flourishing in the production of various lumber and wood products. New crafts and skills were brought to the region in the mid-century years by an influx of Swedish settlers and the village continued to prosper and diversify with contributions from immigrants of predominantly Italian, Irish and English backgrounds. In 1886, with a population around 15,000, Jamestown received its charter as a city by the State of New York.'
- The Pearl City
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Natalie Merchant
Natalie Anne Merchant was born on October 26, 1963 in Jamestown, New York. An accomplished pianist, Merchant was schooled in jazz, folk and classical music by her mother Ann Merchant. She was 7 years old when her father Anthony Merchant left home, following her parents' separation (her mother later got remarried to a mysterious, itinerant jazz musician).
Merchant worked in a health food store while she was still attending college. Her initial lifeplan was to become a schoolteacher by day and a visual artist by night, having worked with disabled children during seasonal breaks and engaged in a variety of community arts projects, but her plans changed dramatically when she joined the rock band Still Life, later to become 10,000 Maniacs.
As a solo artist, Merchant has written and performed political songs, protest songs, spoken word pieces and instrumentals. She's a historian and archivist who's worked to preserve prose, poetry and neglected arcs of the American songbook. She's performed and recorded a range of traditional folk tunes and antique obscurities, including a number of songs plucked from the English songbook, drawing a migratory line between England and America. She's decisively taken on creative projects that she believes in, because if she doesn't have that belief, she can't commit to a project. This has hurt her bank balance but she's making music she believes in.
Merchant worked in a health food store while she was still attending college. Her initial lifeplan was to become a schoolteacher by day and a visual artist by night, having worked with disabled children during seasonal breaks and engaged in a variety of community arts projects, but her plans changed dramatically when she joined the rock band Still Life, later to become 10,000 Maniacs.
As a solo artist, Merchant has written and performed political songs, protest songs, spoken word pieces and instrumentals. She's a historian and archivist who's worked to preserve prose, poetry and neglected arcs of the American songbook. She's performed and recorded a range of traditional folk tunes and antique obscurities, including a number of songs plucked from the English songbook, drawing a migratory line between England and America. She's decisively taken on creative projects that she believes in, because if she doesn't have that belief, she can't commit to a project. This has hurt her bank balance but she's making music she believes in.
"It’s no surprise that Natalie Merchant hasn’t had the cachet she enjoyed in the ’80s and ’90s, when she fronted the Jamestown, NY band 10,000 Maniacs and eventually went solo with a string of modest hits like “Carnival” and “Wonder.” In fact, many of her peers from those two decades have suffered in the new century. R.E.M. aren’t resonating with millennials, either because their ignominious end is still too fresh or because kids are tired of hearing every dude over 40 telling them that Murmur is the greatest thing ever. (It is, by the way.) Indigo Girls have become a cult folk act. U2 have their heads way up their asses, technologically and musically speaking. But 10,000 Maniacs seem to have been forgotten almost completely: Younger musicians aren’t dropping them into lists of influences, their albums aren’t getting deluxe anniversary reissues. A recent and highly informal poll of young people in my college town revealed that no one had heard a lick of their music.
Merchant may not care, actually. She has rarely waxed nostalgic for her youth or her old band, has never seemed to care about the typical markers of success. Her interviews are full of declarations of disdain for the industry and all the aspects of band life that might distract from the art itself. That made her compelling as a young woman, when she was an artist writing songs about systemic abuse and oppression and releasing them on a major label (long before Conor Oberst faced a similar contradiction). As a music-biz veteran, it’s confounding: Aren’t aging artists supposed to be living off the proceeds of the past, scheduling reunion gigs or playing beloved albums in their entirety? Her reluctance to play that particular game has been refreshing, albeit certainly not lucrative, although 3 Decades Of Song suggests she is at long last willing to survey her catalog. Or at least dip her toe in the waters.
Her songs can be surprisingly difficult to describe. They are rooted in the folk groups of the ’60s and ’70s, with Merchant exhibiting the forcefulness of Sandy Denny and the erudite phrasing of Joan Baez, yet the band was enthralled by the same skuzzy postpunk that inspired R.E.M and The Men They Couldn’t Hang. They started life as a reggae band, and their self-released 1981 debut EP, Human Conflict Number Five, sounds more like the Slits than Fairport Convention. Eventually — thankfully — they would abandon songs like “Planned Obsolescence” and “Dub Groove” for an equally esoteric folk-pop that balanced whimsy and gravity while providing a useful frame for Merchant’s studious story-songs. A high-school dropout from Jamestown (a burg most famous in the ’80s for a particularly virulent Satanic panic scare), she penned aggressively intelligent songs about illiteracy, poverty, teen pregnancy, and alcoholism, eventually growing to address westward expansion, income inequality, fundamentalist Christian terrorism, the rape of Africa, the dulling of the American sublime, and other subjects ideal for a summer tour. Even when she sang in character, every song arose from the same perspective, the same set of eyes, however book-bound those eyes might have been.
So it might seem surprising that the band took its name rather hastily, adapting the title of a 1964 gorefest called Two Thousand Maniacs! by renowned B-movie auteur Herschell Gordon Lewis, about a small town in the American South still honoring its antebellum heritage in the most spectacularly grisly ceremonies imaginable. Such a quantity of insane people did not fit the band or its music in the least; in 1994’s New Book Of Rock Lists, the critic Dave Marsh ranked 10,000 Maniacs the 36th worst group name, right between the Brand New Heavies and Lynyrd Skynyrd. He’s not wrong, but there is a hidden meaning in the unlikely cinematic reference that dovetails almost too perfectly with Merchant’s songwriting enterprise: Hers are largely unsentimental songs about confronting the horrors of the American past as well as its often brutal present."
Merchant may not care, actually. She has rarely waxed nostalgic for her youth or her old band, has never seemed to care about the typical markers of success. Her interviews are full of declarations of disdain for the industry and all the aspects of band life that might distract from the art itself. That made her compelling as a young woman, when she was an artist writing songs about systemic abuse and oppression and releasing them on a major label (long before Conor Oberst faced a similar contradiction). As a music-biz veteran, it’s confounding: Aren’t aging artists supposed to be living off the proceeds of the past, scheduling reunion gigs or playing beloved albums in their entirety? Her reluctance to play that particular game has been refreshing, albeit certainly not lucrative, although 3 Decades Of Song suggests she is at long last willing to survey her catalog. Or at least dip her toe in the waters.
Her songs can be surprisingly difficult to describe. They are rooted in the folk groups of the ’60s and ’70s, with Merchant exhibiting the forcefulness of Sandy Denny and the erudite phrasing of Joan Baez, yet the band was enthralled by the same skuzzy postpunk that inspired R.E.M and The Men They Couldn’t Hang. They started life as a reggae band, and their self-released 1981 debut EP, Human Conflict Number Five, sounds more like the Slits than Fairport Convention. Eventually — thankfully — they would abandon songs like “Planned Obsolescence” and “Dub Groove” for an equally esoteric folk-pop that balanced whimsy and gravity while providing a useful frame for Merchant’s studious story-songs. A high-school dropout from Jamestown (a burg most famous in the ’80s for a particularly virulent Satanic panic scare), she penned aggressively intelligent songs about illiteracy, poverty, teen pregnancy, and alcoholism, eventually growing to address westward expansion, income inequality, fundamentalist Christian terrorism, the rape of Africa, the dulling of the American sublime, and other subjects ideal for a summer tour. Even when she sang in character, every song arose from the same perspective, the same set of eyes, however book-bound those eyes might have been.
So it might seem surprising that the band took its name rather hastily, adapting the title of a 1964 gorefest called Two Thousand Maniacs! by renowned B-movie auteur Herschell Gordon Lewis, about a small town in the American South still honoring its antebellum heritage in the most spectacularly grisly ceremonies imaginable. Such a quantity of insane people did not fit the band or its music in the least; in 1994’s New Book Of Rock Lists, the critic Dave Marsh ranked 10,000 Maniacs the 36th worst group name, right between the Brand New Heavies and Lynyrd Skynyrd. He’s not wrong, but there is a hidden meaning in the unlikely cinematic reference that dovetails almost too perfectly with Merchant’s songwriting enterprise: Hers are largely unsentimental songs about confronting the horrors of the American past as well as its often brutal present."
- Stephen Deusner, 'There Was No Girl As Bold As You : The Overlooked Legacy Of Natalie Merchant And 10,000 Maniacs'
'Stockton Gala Days' - 10,000 Maniacs
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The Maniacs
John Lombardo, Dennis Drew, Jerome Augustyniak, Natalie Merchant, Robert Buck & Steve Gustafson
'Don't Talk' - 10,000 Maniacs
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6 Albums
'Human Conflict Number Five' (1982) - 10,000 Maniacs / 'Secrets Of The I Ching' (1983) - 10,000 Maniacs
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"This compilation, Hope Chest: The Fredonia Recordings 1982-1983, released in 1990 contains remixed tracks from 10,000 Maniacs' 1982 EP Human Conflict Number Five and their 1983 debut album Secrets of the I Ching, which were released independently before signing onto a major label. All Music Guide reviewers would have you believe that these are terrible albums, but don't pay any attention to them; you'll only think these songs terrible if you think their classic songs are terrible. They sound fundamentally the same here as they did at their peak in the late '80s and early 90's: groove-happy hippies who have just gotten out of a rotten marriage.
However, there are a few weird stabs at reggae/ska in here, which is a tangent they (thankfully) never expanded upon. You might think they would have handled reggae decently well; after all, they are best known for their tight grooves. But they stink to high heaven. I can't even fathom what was going through their minds when they decided to play that cliché reggae groove in “National Education Week” so dang slowly. It's so lumbering that it's uncomfortable to listen to. They greatly improved the groove in another reggae take-off, “Anthem For Doomed Youth.” However, that must be the only song in 10,000 Maniacs history in which the lead vocals were sung by a man, and he couldn't sing for crap. But those are the only two poor songs of this 14-song release. I would say that's pretty good. 10/10."
- Don Ignacio, '10,000 Maniacs'
Daniel Swackhammer's documentary '10,000 Maniacs : Live At Jamestown', filmed at Jamestown Community College, New York (footage from July 29, 1986)
{ : Beginning 0:00 / "Just As The Tide Was A-Flowing" 0:30 / Interviews 2:43 / "Among The Americans" 6:27 / "Everyone A Puzzle Lover" 9:52 / "Back O' The Moon" 13:15 / "Lilydale" 16:32 / "Scorpio Rising" 19:54 / Interviews 22:42 / "Pit Viper" 24:58 / "Daktari" 30:55 / "Orange" 36:30 / "Burning Airlines Give You So Much More" [(Brian) Eno cover] 39:17 / "National Education Week" 43:53
Interviews 51:02 / "Folie à Deux" w/ Ending 51:34* | * Film commissioned for 1986 Jamestown Centennial Celebration & Lake Erie Creepfest * : }
{ : Beginning 0:00 / "Just As The Tide Was A-Flowing" 0:30 / Interviews 2:43 / "Among The Americans" 6:27 / "Everyone A Puzzle Lover" 9:52 / "Back O' The Moon" 13:15 / "Lilydale" 16:32 / "Scorpio Rising" 19:54 / Interviews 22:42 / "Pit Viper" 24:58 / "Daktari" 30:55 / "Orange" 36:30 / "Burning Airlines Give You So Much More" [(Brian) Eno cover] 39:17 / "National Education Week" 43:53
Interviews 51:02 / "Folie à Deux" w/ Ending 51:34* | * Film commissioned for 1986 Jamestown Centennial Celebration & Lake Erie Creepfest * : }
'The Wishing Chair' (1985) - 10,000 Maniacs
"They never topped this one. It remains one of the greatest rock albums of all time and certainly one of the most criminally underrated. The six-piece Maniacs on this album showed many different sides and colors - leading some to the conclusion that the album is disjointed; well, what's wrong with that? Who wants to listen to a bunch of clones of the same song? The shifts in style are fascinating - it's sometimes hard to believe it's the same band you were listening to moments before. This album's production is also top-notch - they were lucky enough to have the legendary Joe Boyd, a man known for letting bands sound like themselves. (Nothing he's produced EVER sounds dated...check it out.) It's worth comparing this to the clinical and overly-glossy production jobs that followed on their following albums. Lyrically this is how I prefer to hear Natalie Merchant, too - with words that suggest and evoke. She's drawing pictures rather than preaching and moralizing which would be an irritant on later albums. They tip their hat to traditional folk on "Just as the Tide Was A-Flowing", and their love of the material is very evident here; they also deliver some stormy rockers like "Scorpio Rising" and "My Mother the War", but sadly this marked the end of their edge; they'd never do anything this raucous ever again. The absolute best thing about this album is that they sound like a group without any obvious front man (or woman); it sounds like the ideas came from several personalities. A brilliant, timeless masterpiece from start to finish."
- Kevin Scott, SwapACD
"Whoever said above that there's a reason this album is found in the bargain bins just proves my point that what this actually proves is that almost nobody has any taste in good music. Also, most 10,000 Maniacs fans only came into the fold with Blind Man's Zoo, In My Tribe, or egads, the Unplugged album, which is basically fine but ignoring their earlier work is unfair to the band, plus The Wishing Chair is actually an underrated, charming, infectious, affecting, magical, wonderful recording that stands up to any of the band's later works."
- Scott Briggs, Brooklyn WorldNet
'Can't Ignore The Train' - 10,000 Maniacs
'In My Tribe' (1987) - 10,000 Maniacs
"10,000 Maniacs's breakthrough album and creative high point, In My Tribe offers a survey of social concerns, including child abuse ("What's the Matter Here"), illiteracy ("Cherry Tree"), war ("Gun Shy"), and the environment ("Campfire Song") -- all tackled subtly and tastefully without too much preaching or pretension and in believable, real-life situations. Producer Peter Asher, whose credits include James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt, provides the perfect sheen -- the group's pleasant folk-pop lends itself nicely to the '70s-styled singer/songwriter production. In the end, the album proves powerful not for the ideas (they've been covered before) but rather for the graceful execution and pure listenability. In My Tribe has served as one of the soundtracks for P.C. living and was required listening on college campuses in the late '80s."
- Chris Woodstra, AllMusic
"In the ensuing six years after In My Tribe’s release, 10,000 Maniacs released Blind Man’s Zoo (1989), Our Time in Eden (1992) and MTV Unplugged (1993) — all wonderful recordings in their own right. However, Natalie Merchant left the group shortly after their Unplugged set was recorded to pursue what would soon become a fruitful solo career, confiding to Entertainment Weekly in 1995 that she “didn’t want to have to consult with all these other people” and “didn’t want art by committee anymore.” In the aftermath of Merchant’s departure, she recorded her divine solo debut Tigerlily (1995), while the band added vocalist Mary Ramsey to fill the void and recorded 1997’s Love Among the Ruins.
Though all good things invariably come to an end, as they say, 10,000 Maniacs’ 12-year run of making art by committee with Merchant in the fold yielded some of the finest recordings of the era. As gloriously manifest across In My Tribe, their songs possess a timeless quality and grace that keep many of us revisiting them in our imaginations and through our speakers or headphones, time and time again."
Though all good things invariably come to an end, as they say, 10,000 Maniacs’ 12-year run of making art by committee with Merchant in the fold yielded some of the finest recordings of the era. As gloriously manifest across In My Tribe, their songs possess a timeless quality and grace that keep many of us revisiting them in our imaginations and through our speakers or headphones, time and time again."
- Justin Chadwick, Albumism
'Verdi Cries' - 10,000 Maniacs
'Blind Man's Zoo' (1989) - 10,000 Maniacs
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"Natalie Merchant has her own prosaic prosody, with off-kilter guitar accentuating its eccentric undertow. The whole second side of Blind Man's Zoo makes politics not love, and sometimes--like when the lottery-playing mom of "Dust Bowl" rubs her fevered youngest down with rubbing alcohol--she brings you there. But somehow I knew that when she got down to cases she'd still be a fuzzy-wuzzy. This is a woman whose song about Africa (called "Hateful Hate," now there's a resonant phrase) brushes by slavery on its way to elephanticide and ends up condemning "curiosity"--again and again. No wonder she won't listen to "common sense firm arguments."
- Robert Christgau, The Village Voice
"Often lambasted for its over-political nature and pretentiousness, Blind Man's Zoo is tied with Hope Chest as being the most underrated record in the Maniacs' catalogue. The band's form here is astounding, and created remarkable music with much more drive and force than its poppy predecessor, In My Tribe. Songs like "Headstrong" and "Hateful Hate" will blow one out of the water with their forceful nature, the former the most rocking since The Wishing Chair's version of "My Mother the War." The song "Trouble Me," although extremely out of place, is very beautiful by itself. And although the lyrics might be a bit over-bearing at times, "Please Forgive Us" is really one of the Maniacs' best songs, despite Natalie Merchant's vocal displeasure with the song. The recording and production of this album is hands down much better than In My Tribe, and every song sounds lush, wonderful, and powerful. Jerry Augustyniak's drumming has never sounded better in numbers such as "The Big Parade" and, again, "Headstrong." Also, Natalie Merchant's vocals are hovering in-between the youthful essence of the earlier music and the torpor of her later music, producing quite possibly the best (in a technical sense) vocals she has ever done. Many will dismiss this album as preachy or pretentious - maybe it is. But I do not see that upon listening to this album. I simply see the Maniacs in their best form as a band, churning out some amazing music."
- Aly G, Rate Your Music
'Trouble Me' - 10,000 Maniacs
'Our Time In Eden' (1992) - 10,000 Maniacs
"Pushing through the jinx that gave Blind Man's Zoo its preachy feel, 10,000 Maniacs offer up a baker's dozen of wonderful folk-pop songs with hard-hitting messages, nearly matching the brilliance of In My Tribe, their major-label debut. Natalie Merchant is a few years older here, a few tribulations wiser, and a few shakes looser, although that's not to say she doesn't have a point (or 13) to make. Whether with old-school R&B horns ablaze or the simple elegance of a piano and strings, she glorifies, condemns, and cherishes the world she witnesses, not excusing herself or anyone else from the part they play. The rest of the band, Rob Buck, Dennis Drew, Steve Gustafson, and Jerome Augustyniak, gives her the superb musical roots and wings from which to grow and soar. The subject matter of the songs is sometimes subtle, sometimes overt, but always graceful. For instance, "These Are Days" is left open to interpretation, though the upbeat tone is unmistakable, while "I'm Not the Man" is a very pointed and poignant story of a jailed man falsely accused and awaiting his death. Merchant's poetry shimmers and tugs at your heart and head. The prophetically titled Our Time in Eden spawned modest hits with "These Are Days" and "Candy Everybody Wants," but turned out to be the final chapter for this maniacal five-some, as Merchant departed the band shortly after touring in support of the album. A finer swan song has seldom been heard."
- Kelly McCartney, AllMusic
"For once, all the critical lauds are true. This is truly Natalie & company's masterpiece. I'll only make two comments. First is Jerome Augustynak's terrific drumming. These songs deliberately sound like jangly folk rock. Yet the way he drives the more aggressive pieces, like the almost title song "Eden", is genuinely exciting. Second is the album's sound. The warm production makes each instrument distinguishable. The combination of Natalie's piano and Dennis Drew's organ is something special. This is the best 10000 Maniacs ever sounded. It doesn't get any better!"
- Mark Walsh, 'Time In Eden'
'Few And Far Between' - 10,000 Maniacs & The 10K Horns
'MTV Unplugged With 10,000 Manaiacs' (1993) - 10,000 Maniacs
“It’s so great to have Christian Francis Roth dress me. I have that girl side. I like to adorn myself . . . After I played Carnegie Hall last fall, everyone asked, ‘Why were you so good tonight?’ And I said: ‘I’m a girl! I had a new skirt on!’ ”
- Natalie Merchant, Rolling Stone
'These Are Days' - 10,000 Maniacs
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Natalie Merchant
'Tigerlily' (1995)
'Ophelia' (1998)
'Motherland' (2001)
'The House Carpenter's Daughter' (2003)
'Leave Your Sleep' (2010)
'Natalie Merchant' (2014)
'Paradise Is There : The New Tigerlily Recordings' (2015)
'Butterfly' (2017)
'Ophelia' (1998)
'Motherland' (2001)
'The House Carpenter's Daughter' (2003)
'Leave Your Sleep' (2010)
'Natalie Merchant' (2014)
'Paradise Is There : The New Tigerlily Recordings' (2015)
'Butterfly' (2017)
“I feel like every night is a dark night of the soul because I’ve always not been able to sleep. Your nights in the dark by yourself always seem to lead you to those questions: Why do I cling to my expectations of everything? If I could just relieve myself of my expectations, I would probably be a lot more satisfied. But it’s a battle, because I also feel that constant dissatisfaction also pushes me to work and try to change.”
- Natalie Merchant, The Boston Globe
- Natalie Merchant, The Boston Globe
'Nursery Rhyme Of Innocence And Experience' [Charles Causley]
'Maggie And Milly And Molly And May' [E.E. Cummings]
-- --- ---- ---- --- --
{CODA}
'Can I be unhappy?
Look at what I see: a beast in furs and crowned in luxury.
He's a wealthy man in the poorest land, a self-appointed king,
and there's no complaining while he's reigning.
The lambs are bare of fleece and cold; the lion has stolen that, I'm told.
There must be some creature mighty as you are.
The lambs go hungry (not fair), the biggest portion is the lion's share.
There must be some creature mighty as you are.
Can I be unhappy?
Listen and agree, no words can shame him or tame him.
The lambs are bare of fleece and cold; the lion has stolen that, I'm told.
There must be some creature mighty as you are.
The lambs go hungry (not fair), the biggest portion is the lion's share.
There must be some creature mighty as you are, as you are.
Razor claws in velvet paws, you dunce in your guarded home,
'til a stronger beast will call on you and pounce upon your throne.
Do we pay? Dearly, for the lion takes so greedily
and he knows that what he's taken, it is ours.
That's how the wealth's divided among the lambs and king of the beasts, it is so one-sided.
Until the lamb is king of the beasts we live so one-sided.'
Look at what I see: a beast in furs and crowned in luxury.
He's a wealthy man in the poorest land, a self-appointed king,
and there's no complaining while he's reigning.
The lambs are bare of fleece and cold; the lion has stolen that, I'm told.
There must be some creature mighty as you are.
The lambs go hungry (not fair), the biggest portion is the lion's share.
There must be some creature mighty as you are.
Can I be unhappy?
Listen and agree, no words can shame him or tame him.
The lambs are bare of fleece and cold; the lion has stolen that, I'm told.
There must be some creature mighty as you are.
The lambs go hungry (not fair), the biggest portion is the lion's share.
There must be some creature mighty as you are, as you are.
Razor claws in velvet paws, you dunce in your guarded home,
'til a stronger beast will call on you and pounce upon your throne.
Do we pay? Dearly, for the lion takes so greedily
and he knows that what he's taken, it is ours.
That's how the wealth's divided among the lambs and king of the beasts, it is so one-sided.
Until the lamb is king of the beasts we live so one-sided.'
- 'The Lion's Share'
