Category: Personal

When the Chips Are Down

That’s the thirty-second time tonight

That those kids have knocked and run again

I’d stand outside and fight

But there are a million of us: and fifty million of them

There’s a mob smashing down our door

So brave against three kids and their frightened mother

The police don’t come here anymore

We’re just Pakis, so why should they bother?

We tried so hard to reason

But it just pissed them off, that we spoke, just like them

We tried so hard to appease them

But we’re not the same, because we “didn’t die at Arnhem”

When the chips are down, my skin’s still brown

I’m just a Paki to you

When the chips are down, my skin’s still brown

I’m just a Paki to you

We wanted you to end your hatred

We didn’t even want respect

For hours behind that door we waited

Praying that you’d feel regret

And now you want us integrated

Because our background frightens you

But we’re happy differentiated

This way, we might enlighten you

We tried so hard to reason

But it just pissed them off, that we spoke, just like them

We tried so hard to appease them

But we’re not the same, because we “didn’t die at Arnhem”

When the chips are down, my skin’s still brown

I’m just a Paki to you

When the chips are down, my skin’s still brown

I’m just a Paki to you

When the chips are down, my skin’s still brown

I’m just a Paki to you

When the chips are down, my skin’s still brown

I’m just a Paki to you

I thought that we’d turned the corner

I thought that we’d climbed the hill

But we’re right back where we started

Disenfranchised, what a bitter pill

Vocals, programming, guitars, fretless bass: Shahid Ahmad

Solo: Rashid Ahmad

I Dream

Let me tell you about my dreams

I dream that we are one world in harmony. Not unison. Harmony. Different notes. Same song. Not monotony. Freedom. Improvisation. Joy.

I dream we are able to express ourselves and that our spirits can soar to whatever level they desire, without arbitrary material restriction.

I dream that we are free to enjoy the fruits of one another’s expression and that it inspires us to express even more in resonant sympathy.

I dream that love overcomes indifference, that peace overcomes the oppression of unfettered capitalism and its brother, war, that we win.

I dream that work is done out of love, that the fruits of labour are revered, that the worker is paid before the sweat on their back dries.

I dream that life is a game. That when it’s game over, we enjoyed the game, we played the game, we loved the game, we lived the game.

I dream that you love my family as much as I love your family. That you love my land as much as I love yours, that an eye *sees* an eye.

I dream that life slows down until like a ray-traced still, we can imbibe the beauty of a crystallised moment in all its glory for ever.

I dream that you are happy and that I am happy and that your happiness increases my happiness and mine increases yours.

I dream that acceptance always overrides intolerance; that inclusion smothers exclusion; that giving overcomes receiving.

I dream that whosoever is the worst of my enemies can in an instant be completely forgiven and in an instant become my close friend.

I dream that if I were the cause of distress to you, that you accept my sincere apology and that we may be enemies no more.

I dream of heights that can be aspired to by all, and reached by some; with depths that can be tolerated by and descended to by none.

I dream of a human chorus so rousing and powerful, so majestic in rhythm, so profound, that it propels us into a new golden age of humanity.

And last, but not least, I dream that when I wake, God gives me the strength to start working on making these dreams real. Amen.

With my love to you all, whether you are a friend, or yet to become one; only love will overcome pain and rancour. You have mine.

(Thanks Paul Brimmer for compiling my tweets into a Storify)

Kraftwerk taught me how to count to acht in German. They also taught me how to count to four in Spanish, but I prefer their German accents. I was young. I had never really taken an interest in German before. In 1970s Britain, we were raised in a culture of gloating over victory in World War II, probably because we were still smarting from the recent football defeats inflicted on England by Franz “Der Kaiser” Beckenbauer and Gerd Müller. Suddenly as I started to explore identity in my my mid-teens, I found myself liking Germans, and I’ve liked them ever since. I feel an affinity towards the language, and long to be good at it. Those who find it harsh don’t hear its rhythm, its syncopation, its precision and probing. Like Kraftwerk in fact.

I loved Kraftwerk when it wasn’t particularly cool to love them. I loved them in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I played their meisterwerk continuously as I made Chimera. Looking back, there couldn’t have been a more appropriate album to write Chimera to.

We regret those things we do not do, and hopefully, not too many of the things we have done. I regret not having taken the opportunity to see Kraftwek at the Tate Modern. If you were one of those people who planned their life well enough to accommodate a live show that features one of the most prophetic “bands” in pop history, my hats off to you.

If you don’t ache listening to Computer Love (and you can tolerate the Coldplay desecration), then you probably don’t remember a time before Facebook, or a time before compact discs and mobile phones. Yes, there was such a time.

Mike & the Mechanics

Every generation
Blames the one before
And all of their frustrations
Come beating on your door

I know that I’m a prisoner
To all my Father held so dear
I know that I’m a hostage
To all his hopes and fears
I just wish I could have told him in the living years

Crumpled bits of paper
Filled with imperfect thought
Stilted conversations
I’m afraid that’s all we’ve got

You say you just don’t see it
He says it’s perfect sense
You just can’t get agreement
In this present tense
We all talk a different language
Talking in defence

Say it loud, say it clear
You can listen as well as you hear
It’s too late when we die
To admit we don’t see eye to eye

So we open up a quarrel
Between the present and the past
We only sacrifice the future
It’s the bitterness that lasts

So don’t yield to the fortunes
You sometimes see as fate
It may have a new perspective
On a different day
And if you don’t give up, and don’t give in
You may just be OK.

Say it loud, say it clear
You can listen as well as you hear
It’s too late when we die
To admit we don’t see eye to eye

I wasn’t there that morning
When my Father passed away
I didn’t get to tell him
All the things I had to say

I think I caught his spirit
Later that same year
I’m sure I heard his echo
In my baby’s new born tears
I just wish I could have told him in the living years

Say it loud, say it clear
You can listen as well as you hear
It’s too late when we die
To admit we don’t see eye to eye