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Billy Bragg appeared on The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson the other week to plug his new book, The Progressive Patriot, and reworded Waiting For the Great Leap Forwards again...

WAITING FOR THE GREAT LEAP FORWARDS

It may have been Camelot for Jack and Jacqueline
But on the Hugo Chavez highway filling up with gasoline
Little Donald Rumsfield spies a rich lady who's crying
Over luxury's disappointment, so he goes over and he's trying
To sympathise with her but he thinks that he should warn her
To prepare to be bombed back into the Stone Age

In the former Soviet Union the citizens demand
To know why they are still the target of Strategic Air Command
And they shake their fists in anger and respectfully suggest
We take the money from our missiles and spend them on our hospitals instead (yeah)

The Cold War now is over but the stakes are getting higher
I'm frightened of collateral damage and of friendly fire
And I don't think we can defeat no Axis of Evil
By putting 'smart bombs' in the hands of dumb people

Mixing Pop and Politics they ask me what the use is
I offer them my acupuncturist and massueuses
While looking down the corridor
Out to where my ego is waiting
I'm looking for the New World Order (yeah)

Jumble sales are organised, all my mates got fat
Even after all this time you know you can still send me a fax
You can be active with the activists or sleeping with the media
While you're waiting for the Great Leap Forwards

Oh, one leap forward, two leaps back
Will YouTube give MTV the sack?
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards

Well here comes the future and you can't run from it
If you've got a website I want to be on it
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards

In a perfect world we'd all sing in tune
But this is reality not American Idol
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards (yeah)

So join the struggle while you may
The Revolution's just an ethical haircut away
When you're waiting for the Great Leap Forwards

Words & Music : Billy Bragg

Always a joy. He's doing the new large Fopp in Tottenham Court Road soon. Unfortunately it's just a book signing rather than performing.