Heard It All Before lyrics

I had writer's block I was put in the dock
By critics of lyrics said it had to stop
The time to whine had gone tick-tock
Too much too long and over the top

Too much too soon? Too little too late?
It was 'the same old tunes' and they 'started to grate'
Mere speech balloons this was never a debate
Why you still looking for the sell-by-date?

I'm feeling the cost of thinking
It's all been said before
Something got lost
You knew it already
Or just got bored
With all this social observation

Too much too soon? Too little too late?
Any old excuse to disengage
'Don't get so mad' - 'We get tired of hearing it' -
Have you seen where this picture fits?

Into the frame of parenthood
Sometime when it was understood
That parents knew 'nothing' and couldn't 'relate'
Now I'm hearing the same from people my age

And into the frame of teachers and school
Who always knew more but kept to the rules
Teaching the same as they'd been taught before
Never updating, no inner thoughts

And into the frame of governments
Who demonise our common sense
Distort our real experience
Democracy bows to it's own pretention
Its in your reflection

Attention span at closing time?
Don't talk politics! Make it rhyme!
And catch the feet to dance a yard
But politics makes us think too hard!

The way we follow or lead or decide
To co-operate or just stand aside
The way we say 'What you doing today?'
Or couldn't give a shit how we work and play
Is politics
What we each decide
Is politics
To be true or lies
Is politics
It's time to decide
Whether how we live (how we live) is our own free will (own free will)
Are we running our lives? Or are we standing still?