Suit and tie

Suit and tie

We’re deadly afraid of the clever guy

Wearing suit and tie



They used to roam the streets of Reykjavík

And thought they were what made the city tick

From bank to lunch with Nikkei, Dow Jones and

FTSE

Dressed to kill in Armani, Boss and Gucci

Cheerful, laughing, full of self-esteem

The players of our national team



But now you hardly see them anymore

The crisis took them through a different door

Their bank got crunched by Euro, Dollar and Yen

So now they’re trying Tai Chi, Yoga and Zen

Still they’re good in playing the blaming game

The players of our national shame



Iceland: The home of young and retired bosses

And regular people busy counting their losses

The high-flying heroes of good times past

Have come to the ground and had their blast

Hiding inside his fancy house

The bull now meets his inner mouse

And both are dressed in Suit and tie

Suit and tie

Nothing scares like suit and tie



We’re left alone in the Arctic sea

For they left the loan for you and me

To pay

But they

Do have enough to last an eon

Silently kept in the Caribbean

So true, so true

So mad, so bad

But we don’t want back the life we had

Full of lies and numbers high

Enough to keep a country high

On hope of becoming the new Dubai

Where all the women wear Suit and tie

Suit and tie

Suit and tie we kiss goodbye



Communism lasted long

Nations led by Mr. Wrong

Western brokers, young and brave

Went disco dancing on its grave

But victory got to their head

Big ambitions were overfed

The color of blue contained some red

The Wall Street Wall came down one night

And we were all raped by Mr. Right

Capitalism fell on its nose

Died from an overdue overdose

Of arrogance and loneliness

And left the world in a state of mess

We were all fooled by Suit and tie

Suit and tie

Who tricked us, told us: To sell and buy

While speeding across their private skies

Engines fuelled by loans and lies



The boys of Bush and global greed

Left us with a local need

For truth and nothing but the truth

To put inside a confession booth

The Brothers Lehman and all their sons

The neo-cons were just plain cons

In suit and tie

Suit and tie

Trained to loot and taught to lie



Yet we try

To struggle on

A nation betrayed by an evil don

A nation so small you can easily whip

All of it into a cruise line ship

The former captain and his crew

Are still on board but out of view

Sipping on Scotch inside their cabins

And telling jokes like desperate has-beens

Or faking calls

In bathroom stalls

While nervously looking for their balls

We carry on, on a vessel unwell

Steering away from the icebergs of hell

The national body still infected

By the virus we long neglected

Called Suit and tie

Suit and tie

Hoping it won’t make us die



At the airport a father of three

Spends his last in the Duty Free

“We’re going to Norway, to get a life

Wife will study, I’ll be her wife

It’s sad to leave your fatherland

A bit like parting with your hand

But they took the house, they took the car

Does Stavanger have a strip-tease bar?”

And the politician on the TV screen

Speaks of ways to cure the spleen

But his words no longer do apply

For he’s still wearing Suit and tie

Suit and tie

Suit and tie we kiss goodbye



And when you roam the streets of Reykjavík

You spot the signs that made your city sick

Empty houses, vacant office spaces

And way too many fancy meeting places

On the map, nearby the valley parks

The financial district is now shown in quotation

marks

And on the streets and freeways, parking lots

There still are lots and lots

Of black and shiny Range Rover jeeps

Luxurious creeps

Once the symbols of all our national vices

Now they are the coffins of the crisis

Driven by people who died a market-death

But were allowed to prolong their final breath

In suit and tie

Suit and tie

They’re all still wearing their suit and tie

In Germany they have the Nazi outfits

To remind them of the thing that rhymes with...

outfitz

In Iceland we have Suit and tie

Suit and tie

Suit and tie

This poem was first performed at the Kapittel 09 Festival in Stavanger, Norway, September 16th 2009.