Tom Robinson Band
1979 UK re-release (1994) cooking vinyl: COOK CD 077

1) All Right All Night
2) Why Should I Mind
3) Black Angel
4) Let My People Be
5) Blue Murder
6) Bully For You
7) Crossing Over The Road
8) Sorry Mr. Harris
9) Law And Order
10) Days Of Rage
11) Hold Out

Melody Maker / Trouser Press Article
Music by Mail catalog page

1) All Right All Night

We don't see no place for hatred
Real life's too good to waste it
No-one here's afraid to face it
Take it while we can
Keep a space for other faces
Keep the faith and never break it
Now you're round we're bound to make it
Whole world in your hands

Alright all night
Everybody understands
Alright all night
We've got the whole world in our hands

Debt collection, high connection
Gonna get some insurrection
Time to set some fresh direction
Whole world in our hands

Let them run for re-election
Let them get police protection
Cash injection, state correction
Just won't mean a damn

Alright all night
Everybody understands
Alright all night
We've got the whole world in our hands

2) Why Should I Mind?

Heard Billy Graham was busted
At West End Central tonight
Necking on Leicester Square Station
With a lover of mine -
Its just a sign of the times

Idi snorting Coca Cola
Wonder why he's getting maligned
Enoch invited him over
For a couple of lines -
It's just a sign of the times

Debt collectors on the railway
Stealing me blind
I don't worry - why I should mind?
It's nothing but a sign of the times

Brezhnev's having a party
Bring your own bottle of wine
Orlov isn't invited
He's fine in the mine
Its just a sign of the...

Time Out offering aspirin
Invitation to dine
Rent boys eating at Eton
They're getting refined -
It's just a sign of the times

Debt collectors on the railway
Stealing me blind
I don't worry - why I should mind?
It's nothing but a sign of the times

Sunday joint on a mortgage
Saturday back to the grind
Some folks feeling redundant
Some just getting resigned -
It's a sign of the times

3) Black Angel

Steve was a rebel and a boozer
The AC king of teenage cool
He was a clean-cut calculating cruiser
Broke the heart of every kid in the school
Well I never had him figured for a loser
Till one morning no-one could foresee
He fell in love with a sweet black angel
In Brixton Market SE23

I've been in South Kent, Clapham and Cleveland
I've been in love and I've been deceived
But I've never been a sucker like Steven
Who lost sight of everything he'd achieved
Well he told me on the night he was leaving
(Though I found it pretty hard to believe)
You'll fall in love with the sweet black angel
He said I had it coming to me

I've got a friend in Borstal
I've got a friend next door
I've got a friend in my own double bed
I've got a real friend in the law

I've got a friend in Jesus
But we're just good friends you see
Cos I'm in love with the sweet black angel
I know he's coming after me

In love with the sweet black angel
In love with the sweet black angel
I'm in love with the sweet black angel
I know he's coming after me

4) Let My People Be

After the thunder
Jets from the junta
Over the countryside
See my amigo
He got the fever
Shelter him here tonight
On the estates
And in the plantations
Settlements far and wide
Convoy arriving
Son disappearing
Children afraid to cry

Let my people be
Thirty years of empty declarations
Set my people free
Hounded down in towns across the nation

How long will it take
How long do we wait?

High wind arising
Out on the pampas
Villages lying awake
Pretty Pepito
Why are you weeping?
Friends are not far away
Rumour this evening
Government gunboat
Sunk on the river today
In the Sierras
Something is stirring
Liberty blowing our way

Let my people be

Thirty years of empty declarations
Set my people free
Hounded down in towns across the nation

How long will it take
How long do we wait?

5) Blue Murder

He wasn't a loony with a sawn-off gun
A dangerous terrorist on the run
He'd never been mugging or molested a nun
He was really quite a regular guy...
Six pints sober in the club one night
He started to argue with the law outside -
Gets arrested and his hands are tied
Liddley-die...

Lie lie lie diddley lie
Die die die Liddley die

Well they kicked him far and they kicked him wide
He was kicked outdoors, he was kicked inside
Kicked in the front and the back and the side
It really was a hell of a fight...
He screamed blue murder in the cell that night
But he must have been wrong cos they all deny it
Gateshead station - police and quiet
Liddley-die...

Lie lie lie diddley lie
Die die die Liddley die

It was eight to one and the one man died
But the coroner said he was satisfied
Killing Liddle was justified
He really was a desperate man...
So if you figure on staying alive
Button your lip and just swallow your pride
And don't make trouble when your hands are tied
Liddley-die...

Lie lie lie diddley lie
Why why why Liddley die?

Cut the cackle cos we're getting to the facts now
Guilt edged security hold me back now
Cold blanket at the drop of a hat man
Bully for you - I'm just mad about that man

I hear the sound of dogs in the rain
I know you won't be back again
We seen it three times on the run
Pass up a chance to
Cut the crap and make it happen...
Giving can be fun

We don't need no aggravation
We don't need no aggravation

I ain't afraid but I just don't wanna fight now
This movie's over - so switch that light out
Turn of the screw and tomorrow soon come man
Wake in the morning, wonder what've you done man

There ain't another place in town
I'm moving over, going down
Killing time, the morning drop
The final judgement
Stayed a day to try your way to
Make the aching stop...

We don't need no aggravation
We don't need no aggravation

Music by Peter Gabriel

7) Crossing Over The Road

Alice at it again
With three Italian men
Gino once was a cop,
Then he soon had to stop
Outrageous, stuck on a limb
Full of papal bull...
Gun rusty, wet to the skin
The blasted english weather
Stops him getting it together so he's

Crossing over the road
Crossing over the road

Walking out of the store
I met a mob at the door
Six civilians in drag
Ten cadets in a bag
Big bust-up, lead in the air
Somebody start a siege...
Fur flying everywhere
I ain't no bad samaritan -
A dirty rat is what I am, I'm

Crossing over the road
Crossing over the road

Trying to be nice to the next-door neighbours
Leering over the fence
Feeding their cat on my racing pigeons
Just don't make any sense

I met a daddy today
Got invited to stay
Put my stuff in the van
Went and told the old man
He turned purple, tore out his hair
What will Grandma say...
Look son, it's not that I care
But what about your fiancee
I said, I'm better off this way - I'm

Crossing over the road
Crossing over the road

8) Sorry Mr Harris

I'm sorry if the soldiers have to hurt you, Mr Harris
You haven't really left them any choice
This must be quite a trial, you haven't eaten for a while
I wonder what's the matter with your voice?

If you told us what you know it might be wiser
No need to knock your head against a wall
If you told us who you know it might be wiser
I think it might be better for us all

I'm sorry but we simply don't believe you Mr Harris
We've seen you with these people several times
I appreciate your pains, but we need to know their names
It would really take a load off all our minds

If you told us what you know it might be wiser
No need to knock your head against a wall
If you told us who you know it might be wiser
I think it might be better for us all

That fellow Mr Jones you were detained with, Mr Harris
I'm afraid we found him hanging in his cell
So I've asked your little brother to assist with our enquiries
I hope he won't be difficult as well

If you told us what you know it might be wiser
No need to knock your head against a wall
If you told us who you know it might be wiser
I think it might be better for us all

I think it might be wiser if you told us
Then you have my word of honour you can go
I don't mean to twist your arm, we don't mean you any harm
But it's really quite important that we know

If you told us what you know it might be wiser
No need to knock your head against a wall
If you told us who you know it might be wiser
I think it might be better for us all

9) Law & Order

Well I'm six foot nothing of muscle and bone
With my Colt .45 I weigh seventeen stone
Got a Stetson hat and a big cigar
And I clean up trouble with my little tin star

Law and Order... trouble in a bulletproof vest
Law and Order... I'm the troubleshooting king of the West

Well I cleaned up the commies and the longhaired bums
All the Chinee, queers and Red Indian scum
I cleaned out the liquor, loose women and dope
And put the uppity niggers on the end of a rope

Law and Order... trouble in a bulletproof vest
Law and Order... I'm the troubleshooting king of the West

My mommy held tupperware parties
Had acne when I was a boy
Headed out West - expanded my chest
Now they treat me like the real McCoy

Now I never get trouble from nobody else
I can sit right back and feel proud of myself
Got the cleanest city this side of the West
It's so damn clean there ain't nobody left

Law and Order... trouble in a bulletproof vest
Law and Order... I'm the troubleshooting king of the West

I'm the cotton-pickin', high fallutin',
Rooty-tootin', put-the-boot-in
Troubleshooting king of the West

Lyric by TR and Dolphin Taylor

10) Days Of Rage

Seeing is believing a feeling
And something needs seeing to fast
I've had seventeen years of nowhere
Now they're trying to put me out to grass
Well I've always been a bit of a loner
And never had a life of my own
Coming of age I'm feeling the rage
That I never had the bottle to show

Every year of bitter submission
Been plotting my bitter revenge
The endless humiliations -
Gonna tear their eyes to pieces
Same way you treated the Peaches
Breaking their hearts and their bones
Now you gonna face the hatred
Of the dog you wouldn't have in your home

Now I'm coming out in the open
I ain't about to step on the rail
Footsteps follow on the tube train
But God help the man on my tail
Every one of you can take it or leave it
But you'd better get out of my way
I'm a jackal on the ultimate rampage
And a killer at the end of the day

Watch out wild women doctors
Witch hunt's out with the pack
Even if you're high and mighty...
You gonna feel that steely backstab
This time I mean to get even
It's the last time I mean to be hurt
They'll never get to figure what hit them...
Unless they get a gun to me first

11) Hold Out

You can't fool all of the people
And it galls me to remember I tried
Those whom the Lord
Has joined with his sword
Let no man put aside
The kiss on your lips tastes of wormwood
So swing low, Iscariot, my friend
I'm promising you
I'm gonna see it right through
I'm gonna hold out to the bitterest end
Hold out... hold out
I'm gonna hold out to the bitterest end

I fear neither hell nor high water
Come October this time I'll be gone
There's changes to be made
And some debts to be paid
I'm a desperate man from now on
How are the mighty fallen
Living to regret every day
There's music to be faced
So I'm leaving this place
I'm gonna hold out and find my own way
Hold out... hold out
I'm gonna hold out and find my own way