A between-albums (second and third, to be exact) single by The Pop Group, and a quintessential slice of Pop-Group-ness, bearing all the seeds of its musical/political factions and eventual internal fractiousness.
It opens with a snippet of "gibberish" -- maybe taken from some third world field recording, and it evokes, perhaps, the National Geographic-like image on their first LP cover. Singer Mark Stewart rants throughout (and that's why you gets ALL CAPS below), so overjoyed at being able to wrap his leather lungs around these lyrics that he lapses into OTT-land in some points. John Waddington's guitar riffing sounds like he's inventing hardcore, while Bruce Smith and Dan Katsis pound away at a generic discofunk beat made Pop-Group-able by the sheer raggedness of its execution. Gareth Sager's two cents comes in the form of a squealing sax solo, more anemic Albert Ayler than King Curtis, and guest noisemaker Dutch/American free improvisor Tristan Honsinger, saws away on cello in the latter portions, seemingly unbeknownst to producer Dennis "Blackbeard" Bovell (the group's Punky Reggae Party sponsor), who apparently forgot to throw reverb on it -- or was this one of his dub tactics?
The flipside, "Amnesty International Report on British Army Torture of Irish Prisoners" (later known as "Amnesty Report" -- thanx), was almost as advertised: not the whole report, since this was only a 45-RPM recording, but a recitation of the Reader's Digest Condensed Version ("Stomach, head, and genitals / Choked until unconscious..."), backed with a group-improvised background.
WE ARE ALL PROSTITUTES
EVERYONE HAS THEIR PRICE
AND YOU TOO WILL LEARN
TO LIVE THE LIE
AGGRESSION
COMPETITION
AMBITION
CONSUMER FASCISM
CAPITALISM IS THE MOST BARBARIC OF ALL RELIGIONS
DEPARTMENT STORES ARE OUR NEW CATHEDRALS
OUR CARS ARE MARTYRS TO THE CAUSE
WE ARE ALL PROSTITUTES
OUR CHILDREN SHALL RISE UP AGAINST US
BECAUSE WE ARE THE ONES TO BLAME
WE ARE THE ONES TO BLAME
THEY WILL GIVE US A NEW NAME
WE SHALL BE
HYPOCRITES HYPOCRITES HYPOCRITES
at this moment despair ends and tactics begins
-- Bruce Smith, Gareth Sager, John Waddington, Dan Katsis, and Mark Stewart, from Rough Trade 45 RT 023 (1979), Wanna Buy a Bridge? (Various Artists, 1980) and We Are All Prostitutes (a Pop Group compilation, 1998)