Bottom of the pile, I hate what you are, I hate your bloody ethnicity
Cause Granny came over in the sixties promised gold lined street in a metropolis
I wonder if it were an instant epiphany that it will never ever be what she perceived
Down trodden turned people into mincemeat that’ll be what’s left from the machine
But see my granny she ain’t like anybody that I know beauty can turn bods into beasts
But if you see yourself after twenty odd years, tumultuous times and a million beers
Adulterous life with the same old fears a lust for a new life but you’re stuck in a gear
Could you stare in the mirror
Could you call yourself a winner
But if you see yourself after twenty odd years, tumultuous times and a million beers
Adulterous life with the same old fears a lust for a new life but you’re stuck in a gear
Could you stare in the mirror
Could you call yourself a winner – could ya
And then my Mum came over here in the seventies
And worked hard for everything that she achieved
I love my Mum so much she’s the man in the mirror
Bless me with all my tenacity
But when you’re the bottom of the pile and they hate what you are
And they hate your bloody ethnicity
It’s bloody hard in the city when you have three kids still working through your identity
But if you see yourself after twenty odd years, tumultuous times and a million beers
Adulterous life with the same old fears a lust for a new life but you’re stuck in a gear
Could you stare in the mirror
Could you call yourself a winner – could ya
Listen, I mean you are what you tell yourself
Horrible words will quell your advantages
You will become your own disadvantage
I say don’t take your own words for granted
I was a looser and a bastard but my Daddy was only a phone call away
You have all the answers, you can be a dunce in your own class if you want mate
Idiots congregate, geez sheep but men emancipate,I was a sheep in the jail cell
All the times I would find I would weep cos my best friend died I used to ring up his voicemail
I made a man out myself I was weak but my power runs deep, its deep, its ancestral
I will never let my family down. Because my Mum wears her crown on her head, it’s ancestral – trust me
Mum came over, Dad came over, Gran came over and they all did their thing you know
Showing the way all the time, didn’t really get it before, but as I turn into a man I understand what they was tryna show me
Could you call yourself a winner
Could you call yourself a winner
Could you stare in the mirror
That’s it
RIP Gran Man
Ancestral was written by Craigie Dodds & Nitin Sawhney.
Nitin Sawhney released Ancestral on Fri Oct 13 2023.