Everybody Knows the Dice are Loaded

1. Everybody Knows
(co-written by Sharon Robinson)

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you've been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you've been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

And everybody knows that it's now or never
Everybody knows that it's me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah when you've done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows

And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows

And everybody knows that you're in trouble
Everybody knows what you've been through
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
To the beach of Malibu
Everybody knows it's coming apart
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
Before it blows
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Oh everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows

Pump Up the Volume

I just rewatched the movie Pump Up the Volume. It was a product of the early 90's that I brought my students at my school to see. In many ways, the messages it gives from then still or again resonate now.

The movie addresses, among other things, the tyrrany of standardized testing in terms o school performance and evaluation. The practice of pushing students out of a school to inrease the appearance o perormance results isold, not new. Compounmd that with keeping those self-same students on the rolls until you get the money for them, and you have the basis of an incredibly corrupt system.

Reading news excerpts over the last few years shows Superintendents, Principals, Guidance Counselors, and Teachers all caught cheating/lying to increase their students' scores on these high stakes tests. What lessons are we, are you taught by this behavior?

I wrote the linked essay not too long after I saw the movie for the first time: http://www.geocities.com/josh_shaine/everybody_knows.html (I apologize to those who are offended by Yahoo/Geocities sites.)

(I like the Leonard Cohen version better than the Conrete Blonde version, but for some reason the CB version is the only one that made it onto the sound track! Grr...)