Subject: Cabaret Voltaire: Don't Argue

For those who were looking for something else from CabVolt, here are lyrics for their Do Right and Sensoria.  All three tracks sorta blend into each other in a delightful post-Cold-War trifecta of paranoid lyrical bliss... If you want to extend that mix, throw down Here to Go (The 6:57 mix is canonical, the eleven-eleven mix is instrumental joy), and Doom Zoom.  If you want to extend it further, throw in Sex, Money, Freaks, some Thank You America, and Spies in the Wires.

Rumor has it that the sample sources in Don't Argue are from an Air Force training film on what do to if shot down over enemy territory.  Can anyone recognize the original source and either cite it or link to it?   (I've seen people cite it as sourced from the '50s and WW2, and I'm going with WW2 based on the references to "Go to Church" in Do Right, which sound very much like the samples in Don't Argue, but the suggestion of "Go to church" would not work in the USSR, but might help work in certain places in WW2, hence my calling of a WW2 AF film as the source of the samples for both tracks...)  The samples sound vaguely like 45RPM records slowed to 33RPM, or a similar sort of slowdown done via tape.

Anyways, since nobody could find it, here's my take on the lyrics for "Don't Argue", taken from the Dance Mix, 7:30 and the Extended Mix, 5:46, and with as much of the samples as I could get.

SAMPLE: Don't let it fool you.  You are in enemy country.  Be alert.  Suspicious of everyone.  Take no chances.  They have had no free speech.  Had no free press.  They were brought up on straight propaganda.  They have been trained to hate and destroy.  Don't  argue with them.

(No, don't you argue with me...)

It's not safe to go out, it's not right to stay home,
Listen ((he said??)), my advice is to carry a gun.
No, no, no, better watch - better watch your step, boy.
It's not right to leave everyone wondering how,
((he said)) If you're gonna drop it, then drop it now.
No, no, no, better watch - better watch your step, boy.

CHORUS:
Who cares what goes?
Who cares what you know?
Who cares what you do without?
Who cares what's so?
(2x)

What goes.
What you know.
What you do wihtout.
What's so.

SAMPLES:  
Don't argue with them.  
Don't try to change their point of view.  (3x).  
You will not be friendly.  (2x)  
You will be aloof.  (3x).  
Watchful.  Suspicious.  Watchful... and suspicious.

(CHORUS)

But you're trying to drive with no hands on the wheel...
No, no, no, better watch - better watch your step, boy.
(2x)
If you're gonna drop it, then drop it now.

Will something please click into place,
And make something of all this waste,
'Cos you're trying to drive with no hands on the wheel,
(To) Find your own way, and how it feels.
It's not safe to go out, it's not right to stay home,
Listen, my advice is to carry a gun.
No, no, no, better watch - better watch your step, boy.
No, no, no, better watch - better watch your step, boy.

(CHORUS)

SAMPLES:
Don't clasp that hand (3x.)
It's not the kind of a hand you can clasp in friendship.

(CHORUS)

-  Cabaret Voltaire, Don't Argue, ca. 1987's Code.

In 1987, I used this as the background music while playing a video game that involved me sneaking into the USSR in a simulated stealth fighter to do untold mayhem on behalf of the forces of freedom against the menace of totalitarianism.  Today?  Well, these days I just rehearse the sampled portions as my mantra at the TSA checkpoints whenever I go traveling on vacation.  Plus ca change, plus ca la meme.  (Don't throw the past away, you might need it some rainy day.  Nightmares come true again, when everything old is new again...)  The difference between Hugh Jackman's version and the Barenaked Ladies' version couldn't be any more poignant.