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Ringmaster: The winger of eight-eight and nine Was aching cold, it chilled the very soul They came from the country in twos and threes A trickle, a river, a torrent, a sea, Driven by hunger, driven by pain A hundred thousand reached the barricade Three hundred dead Shot down like rats Three hundred lives Snuffed out like that Have a care if you treat your people like vermin You could end up with bloodstained ermine But soft As ever in the ebb and flow Sweet reason, deft and incorrupt Adoring of the human kind illuminates man's plight Should be embrace The brute and base Tilt blindly at the carousel Or note, at least, the other voice And entertain the choice Between the darkness and the light? "To laugh is to know how to live" Letras de canciones Marie Marianne: To laugh is to know how to live To see is to know everything To read is to hold the key that you need The key you need to set you free Ringmaster: All the world can see that in this great library There's a good medicine against tyranny And the movement of the heavens Though it may last forever sees no right, no wrong, no weak, no strong And the star you see in the sky and the moon and the sun Shine on prince and pauper alike and favour no one Children's Choir: The politics of the Rights of Man Is the sharing of apples with an even hand To plant a tree were birds may sit But who in France will nurture it "Slavers, Landlords, Bigots at your door" Revolutionary Priests: Slaves, Landlords, Bigots at your door Aristocrats, Democrats, survivors of the North American war Some with heart, some without hate Some with faith in the human race And so the loan sharks Selling dreams in honeyed tones like skylarks And rats who speak like cats of sacred rights The sacred rights of the family Marie Marianne: And al those brave souls both brave enough and crazy enough To spill their blood for truth alone That one or two ideas survive, always survive Writ in blood on paving stones Children's Chorus: And the noble class who rule Having been to all the best schools Have thought it through and are good enough To explain what is best for us It came to them in a dream In a blinding flash of light Equality, fraternity and not just in the afterlife And they promise us reading And they promise us reading If we kneel before the King All Soloists: And on the street corners The broadsheets all carry the usual story A people dying to believe in some benign authority To lead them down a road that's paved with glory To lead them down a road that's paved with glory From Letras Mania