Lyrics for Welcome To The Occupation as interpreted by xpankfrisst

Welcome To The Occupation Lyrics
Hang your collar up inside, hang your dollar on me
Listen to the water still, listen to the causeway
You are mad and educated, primitive and wild
Welcome to the occupation

Here we stand and here we fight
All your fallen heroes held and dyed and skinned alive
Listen to the Congress fire
Offering the educated, primitive and loyal
Welcome to the occupation

Hang your collar up inside, hang your freedom higher
Listen to the buyer still, listen to the Congress
Where we propagate confusion, primitive and wild
Fire on the hemisphere below

Sugar cane and coffee cup
Copper, steel and cattle
An annotated history, the forest for the fire
Where we open up the floodgates freedom reigns supreme
Fire on the hemisphere below

Listen to me
Listen to me
Listen to me
Listen to me

Interaction
Mail to a friend Send Lyrics to a Friend
Share on Facebook

Stumble It
Add to Del.icio.us Add to Del.icio.us




  • 9 Comments
  • Printer Friendly Lyrics
oldest first     Expand All
ZinbobDan
04-15-2004

Rated 0 
anyone else think this applies to the current Iraq conflict???

Log in to reply
Relinquo1
04-17-2004

Rated 0 
It's about the US exploiting Latin America, we support governments who like us and attack those that don't. It also has a lot of references to deforestation. "Sugar cane and coffee cup
Copper, steel and cattle" come from the rainforest and there are images of fire throughout. The Occupation is probably being one of the profiteers I suppose. I think it does apply to Iraq - both the political motivations, and the corporate/oil interest type stuff.

Log in to reply
ZinbobDan
05-23-2004

Rated 0 
it was about a specific occupation of a central american country...i want to say nicaragua, but it could hav been another...since i wanna say nicaragua, i also wanna say it's about the iran-contra affair a little bit...

...i'm probably wrong, i bet it's columbia

Log in to reply
Akakuro
05-27-2004

Rated 0 
I think the "fire on the hemisphere below" pretty much limits it to Central and South America.

Log in to reply
DJacques75
12-01-2004

Rated 0 
At the time the song was written, the "occupation" of most of Latin America was economic rather than military.

Log in to reply
rockman
01-26-2006

Rated 0 
It can also mean that someone new to the government can get used to the bad stuff going on very easily and can become corrupted and lose their innocence.

Log in to reply
rikdad
11-27-2006

Rated 0 
This was definitely written when Nicaragua was a possible target for US invasion, but there was US intervention in other Central American countries and Colombia as well, so it doesn't necessarily exclude them.

The Reagan-era hostility towards socialist Nicaragua was rather active and included the mining of ports.

The US actually invaded Panama just over one year after this album was released, although the US troops withdrew after only a very short "occupation".

Log in to reply
dontkillwhitey
05-09-2007

Rated 0 
I always heard this was about El Salvador--supposedly Stipe is on record saying so.
-"hang your collar up inside"=possibly refers to the clerical collars worn by priests. The Liberation Theology movement within the Catholic Church claimed that the Church should support the Sandinistas and other resistance fighters in Central America (The Vatican officially disavowed this).
-"primitive and wild"=the official insult of colonialism. Stipe is linking the current exploitation to the atrocities perpetrated by Cortes and the conquistadores.
-"held and dyed and skinned alive"=the death squads' weapons of choice were machetes.
-"Fire on the hemisphere below"=always reminded me of Conrad's HEART OF DARKNESS in which the navy fires cannon shells into the forest for no particular reason.

Log in to reply
PITONES
06-22-2007

Rated 0 
amazing song...

Log in to reply




  • Add Your Comments
What does this song mean to you?

You must be logged in to post your comments.

Feel free to create an account with us, or log in with your existing account, to start adding your comments to songs.





Popular
Top:   Lyrics, Artists, Albums
Random:   Lyric, Artist, Album

Your Ad Here