Twenty years ago, on The The’s MIND BOMB, Matt Johnson identified the systemic knee-capping of GEN X, and thence Y, Zero and O.

THE BEAT(EN) GENERATION

When you cast your eyes upon the skylines of this …
Once proud nation,
Can you sense the fear and the hatred
Growing in the hearts of its population?

And our youth, oh youth, are being seduced
By the greedy hands of politics and half truths.

The beaten generation, the beaten generation,
Reared on a diet of prejudice and misinformation.
The beaten generation, the beaten generation
Open your eyes, open your imagination.

We’re being sedated by the gasoline fumes
And hypnotised by the satellites
Into believing what is good and what is right.

You may be worshipping the temples of Mammon
Or lost in the prisons of religion,
But can you still walk back to happiness
When you’ve nowhere left to run?

If they send in the special police
To deliver us from evil and keep us from peace.

Then won’t the words sit ill upon their tongues
When they tell us justice is being done
That freedom lives in the barrels of a warm gun?

The beaten generation, the beaten generation,
Reared on a diet of prejudice and misinformation.
The beaten generation, the beaten generation,
Open your eyes, open your imagination.