Category: 1987

Why Nobody Wants To Change – 1st December 1987

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

So the good days are over they’re all gone
While away your life, working all day long
Nine to five and you think you’re doing well
What about the future, well, who can tell?

Pay slips arrived and Friday’s here
Down the pub for another sixteen beers
Don’t it look great, this lovely world of ours
They make it look like a rosy bed of flowers

They’ve blinded you well, making them look good
Suppressing your mind, you always said they would
Changed your opinion and altered your face
You fit in their plans cos it suits your taste

So who knows what’s the reason
Why nobody wants to change?

Don’t know what you want, but you want it now
Talk to your friends cos they’ll show you how
It’ll look great, this lovely world of ours
They’ll make it look like a rosey bed of flowers

From Revolution To Ruin – 27th November 1987

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

We’re lost and forgotten in the modern age
Chewed up, spat out, ravaged by the plague
A generation like a new invention
A short sharp shock rather than prevention

Not being able to speak our mind
We must find new answers for our own kind
Say we’re never right, we’re always wrong
Keep in line, stay where you belong

So now we stand ready to fight for our cause
Somethings not right, it’s time to take a pause
Same old story, we’re better, you’re worse
It’s some sort of trendy tribal curse

You’re so cold, I’ve seen it before
Think you’re so big, walking so tall
Seeing what you can get from people like me
When you fall you’ll get no sympathy

Don’t even know what I’m doing now
It’s not worth thinking, I don’t know how
A revolution that doesn’t make sense
Don’t know what you’re fight against

What will you do now you’re having fun
Will you look back at what you’ve done
Gave up the fight for your selfish aims
So you could carry on with your little games

What I See Is All Around Me – 15th November 1987

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

What I see is all around me
Poison gas comes to surround me
Unhappy until it’s found me
What is all around me?

Acid rain burns up my home
And all the things I’ve grown
With all the love I’ve shown
I feel so alone

Throwing smoke into the sky
We don’t even question why
Who’ll be standing by your side
When the world begins to die

I see the clouds in the sky
As time keeps passing me by
I sit alone and wonder why
As the clouds keep passing me by

I see a hole in the atmosphere
And wondering what I’m doing here
The future seems so unclear
I wonder what I’m doing here

17th Oct 2025 – Ozone holes, Bhopal and Chernobyl, along with Mutually Assured Destruction, all added to the general zeitgeist of fear in the 80s.

Johnny Looked Sad – 8th November 1987

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Johnny looked really sad
Looked like he’d killed his dad
Stood outside in the rain
His face etched with the pain
No one said a single word
Least not that anyone heard
Hands in pockets he trudged away
He’s been like that since yesterday

19th Oct 2021 – I have such a clear image in my mind of the photograph that inspired this poem but cannot find it online anywhere. Perhaps I’m misremembering or making it a combination of other images. These will give you an idea at least:

Badhead – 24th October 1987

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Badass motherfuckers
Skating on the sidewalk
Rad thru the precinct
Smashing up the billboards

Ride til you die
And skate for your life
Crashed out
Wheels split either side

Badhead, motherfucker
Badhead, shoot that sucker
Badhead, riding high
Badhead, watch you fly

17th Oct 2025 – I wasn’t really a part of skate culture and no one in our village had a skateboard, preferring BMXs and then motorbikes. Skateboards didn’t make much sense for fun or for transport. I did learn of its connection to punk through The Stupids and some other US bands. I seemed to understand that it was cool and rebellious without particularly knowing why. At least, until a little later when ‘the man’ tried to stop kids skating everywhere.