Billy Joel - No Man's Land

From the Album River of Dreams - No Man's Land:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzoGHYdLUPo

Lyrics/commentary:

I've seen those big machines come rolling through the quiet pines

Large scale capital is used to develop unspoiled wilderness, but ultimately unproductive land. Is capital available from prudent savers orgovernment subsidized bankers?

Blue suits and bankers with their Volvos and their valentines

The ultimate boss – the consumer, his and her demands reflect their values – Volvo: safety, family, Swedish Engineering: http://www.sw-em.com/volvostack.jpg
This family is sustained by romantic love. The clothing and job indicate that money won’t be a pressing concern, assuming modest consumption…

Give us this day our daily discount outlet merchandise

Consumption as an end in itself, the very concept of an “outlet” implies a large, energy intensive infrastructure, is that efficient compared to other forms of communities? Also, these are non-durable goods – mostly crap.

Raise up a multiplex and we will make a sacrifice

They want a multi-screen theatre, to consume more of the culture, both a mirror and a feast. Yes, they will sacrifice, but what?

Now we're gonna get the big business

Maybe they’ll build a mall around here!

Now we're gonna get the real thing

Sharper Image!

Everybody's all excited about it

Residential and light commercial blight essentially kills everything that was there before and replaces it with enforced non-growth or even crazier, the intensive cultivation of ornamental grass. You can’t even eat it!

Who remembers when it all began - out here in No Man's Land

What were the values and intentions of these people that moved away from somewhere else and tried to for a community based on nothing in particular.

Before they passed the master plan - out here in No Man's Land

Master planned communities, boring and uninspired by design. Strictly functional and at the worst, demeaning. But all this grows from a mistake about the customer, this “resident” is not an animal, it’s a human and it needs a society a community.

Low supply and high demand - here in No Man's Land

That says it all, the ‘community’ just consumes. Rand might say, they’re all looters.

There ain't much work out here in our consumer power base

Economics based on consumption always end up making mistakes about job creation. Saving is noted valued, capital accumulation is nil, as is investment. Yet they ask, why no jobs?

No major industry, just miles and miles of parking space

What about minor industry? There is no productive labor, just services

This morning's paper says our neighbor's in a cocaine bust

The community is starting to reap, black market employment flourishes.

Lots more to read about Lolita and suburban lust

Symptoms decried, causes denied. The social impact of non-community.

Now we're gonna get the whole story

Truth seems accessible only because it is assumed. The media outlets, the opinions of others are substituted for thinking and debating.

Now we're gonna be in prime time

Everybody's all excited about it

The love of the thing, the symbol, becomes an end itself - the cultural itself demands worship.

Who remembers when it all began - out here in No Man's Land

We've just begun to understand - out here in No Man's Land

The cracks in the edifice are begining to show, only now are a few starting to think of how they came to such an end.

Low supply and high demand - here in No Man's Land

I see these children with their boredom and their vacant stares

God help us all if we're to blame for their unanswered prayers

Education becomes as formulaic and one-size-fits-all as the roads and retail stores. The next generation of this community is experiencing spiritual and emotional death, they would be the first generation to be outdone by their parents.

They roll the sidewalks up at night this place goes underground

Thanks to the Condo Kings there's cable now in Zombietown

More and more of society rebels against the oppression of non-ideas and sterilized lives. A social black market is just as alive as the drug trade. Whatever this Zombietown is - people are fleeing it, in any way they can. Others can't get enough:

Now we're gonna get the closed circuit

Now we're gonna get the Top 40

Now we're gonna get the sports franchise

Now we're gonna get the major attractions

Financial, cultural and spiritual servitude - grasping at the wind.

Who remembers when it all began - out here in No Man's Land

Before the whole world was in our hands - out here in No Man's Land

Before the banners and the marching bands - out here in No Man's Land

Low supply and high demand - here in No Man's Land

This "community" probably has few voluntary social institutions. Lives are lived as the houses are build, separate and indistinguishable. No one remembers, because there is nothing to remember. History records events of human significance, all they can muster are symbols, that signify nothing.