outside marischal college a row of brightly coloured tents
a mannie with a clipboard and i asked him what it meant
he said the council budget had cut homeless relief
so just to illustrate the point they were sleeping in the street

a starved-out public sector while the private's overfed
a higher GDP per capita means a lower settlement per head
the government can't help out the richest patch of scottish soil
so tell me is it time to rue the day that aberdeen struck oil?

lets ask other oil-rich nations if this feels the same
as when their local resource was auctioned off for private gain
the niger delta's running red
angola's sprawling slums
what kind of life outside those compounds filled with our engineers and hired guns?

yes we need 'a brighter outlook' but where we go from here depends
i mean, that's an us-and-them mentality fortifying the west end
and those nurses in the maty are teaching abstinence from birth
and the gulf between's getting ever-wide
we must act for all we're worth

so don't say we didn't warn them, those CEO bigwigs
and let the cry go up now - 'we are taking back the rigs'
to seize us some inheritance and spread some good around
before conglomerates squeeze the last drop
and scuttle out of town