Be Nice to People - Live

[spoken]
I think it's fun if it gets louder and louder
And I have to shout over you, like you're obnoxious accompanists
I'll start playing saxophone at some point
And when I start talking again, that means it's nearly the end
Probably
If in doubt, yes
And please sing

[vocalising]
Ah...

[spoken]
That's fucking great

[vocalising]
Ah...

Be nice to people
Walking on graves
Making a game, a game of old hard won ways
Beating each other with bad kebab splatter
Making a gutter, making a gutter out of grace

Be nice to people
Poking in- big money mits all looking for loss, looking for loss with a pointy stick
Sent, sent by their simpering
Bent by the breeze
Painting the earth with sick

Be nice to people
Poking in holes
Fingering sores
Picking their blisters
Beggin' for applause
Cajoling and closing their minds and their doors
Abusive and fragile, abusive and fragile and bored

Be nice to people
Who kiss with a sneer
Connive and contrive and divide
And they jeer absentmindedly
Clearly and blindly
Who need and they need without aim but precisely
And they take
And they hate
And fear

[vocalising]
Ah...

Be nice to people
But not down your nose, not down your nose
Not cos your clever
And better than all those
Not in the name of some kind of fucking snarky hierarchy but
Plainly, just plainly and painfully true;
Not with your cane
With your hands, with your hands

I mean, it's
Not like there's nothing
We don't understand
Not to be kind, not to be kind not to be cruel
Be nice
Be nice to people
It passes the time?
It's harder to do and if you can't that's fine
And if you're not, you know, they probably won't mind
But it's more like being alive

And if nothing else
It's more dignified

Be nice to people
I don't know why

[instrumentals]

Be nice to people
I don't know why
Not on behalf of the man in the sky
Not to feel good about yourself when you die
Be nice to people
If you had it described as unjust

All the same
It wouldn't betray
Any trust
And if anyone tries to tell you
"You must"
They don't speak
On behalf
Of all
Of us