Key 13 – Carousel

Expressing my frustration with an adversarial political system of extremes, where each party gets into power and immediately tears down what the previous one built.

I don't believe red and blue are the same - although both are flawed, one is demonstrably far worse than the other both here in the UK and over in the US - but this constant cycle of meaningless rhetoric based on short term popularity just eats money and serves no-one.

Only electoral reform is likely to break the cycle - creating a slowly-evolving coalition government of people who have to work with each other and actually represent the population they're supposed to serving.

This was originally written and recorded in a few days for a song-a-week prompt of "Carousel" in Feb 2024, and has been substantially remixed from that original demo for this June 2024 release, just in time for the UK General Election.

You can find the original demo on SoundCloud.

---

Lyrics

---

Painted faces on wooden ponies
Up and down they go
Pledges made by fairground phoneys
You can’t believe a word

Left wing striders and right wing bluster
On this roundabout of broken dreams
Where no-one wins

The cycle prevails
Where unity fails
We all slow down.

Carousel!
We go round and round and round
Carousel!
It goes round and round and round

Blue horses prance, the red ones follow
Round and around they go
Build a thing, tear it down, Build another
Watch the money go

The rhetoric swings
Our candy floss dreams
Melting away

Carousel!
They go round and round and round
Carousel!
We all go round and round and round

Ticket booths are selling hope today
One gives, the other takes away.

Carousel!
We go round and round and round
Carousel!
It goes round and round and round

round and round and round
round and round and round
round and round and round
round and round and round

red blue red blue red blue