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Composer: Ed Hooke
Written: March-May 2020
                          
Recorded:  May-June 2020

Dinosaurs died out.

What brought their rout about?
Some claim a huge asteroid clout.
Perhaps what killed them off
instead was a dry cough
rendering lung function void.

Out pour poor-brained folk
- their/they’re spanners for the spoke
- protest against self-protection.

Demon-eyed scam preacher
puffs, virus to beat.  Yeah
microbes don’t give a feck.

Commentary
Written during the first wave of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic when ‘social  distancing’ was introduced for the first time in living memory, maintaining a physical distance between people n order to reduce transmission of the virus.

There are lots of double meanings in the words of this song,, the first being in the title (a famliar phrase at London Underground stations, repeatedly warning passengers moving between train & platform to be careful because of the space between the two).  Here the word “mind” means both “observe;/maintain” and “experience distress because of”.  (‘Gaps’ of course refers just to the advised ‘social distancing’.)  ‘On our hands’ can be both figurative & literal.  ‘Two meeters’ is of course a homonym for ‘two metres’ while ‘clear’ can refer to both clarity and distance .  ‘Home’ and ‘away’ can be both synonyms & antonyms here..  ‘Touched’ can be literal or imply the dated, figurative quasi-religious sense of having reasoning difficulties/differences.  ‘Those who congregate’ could refer to any gathering of people in one place, although the term ‘congregate’ has long been used by religious groups specifically for their own gatherings.  ‘Malware’ could refer to the virus...

Pangolin/bat.  Some believe that the coronavirus was first transmitted to humans by someone eating an infected pangolin or bat bought at a Chinese wet market.

‘Demon-eyed scam preacher’ may possibly refer to US American televangelist & multimillionaire, Kenneth Copeland.

The most common modernday usage of the word ‘bargepole’ is “I wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole’, the word ‘it’ referring to something that one wishes to keep well away from.

With a pandemic virus on our hands
two meeters must be clear
of where each other stands.
Stay at home!  Stay away!  Stay away!

Don’t come near me.
I shall keep my distance too.
Sometimes we’ll smile, perhaps
but still we mind the gaps
& I miss you.

Oh! Could we too face a similar fate?
- humanity scratched, scourged,
scrubbed, purged
from the planet’s plate?
Oh! Pangolin post host, Trojan bat.
You’d have to be bat-shit crazy
to dine out on that.

Rot!  Bring me a bargepole then be gone.
Those touched or who congregate

risk passing malware on.
What though of the virus’s point of view?
It’s only trying to feed its family on you.

Sad social separation simply serves
this wish which seeks for passing peaks
& flattened curves.
Stay at home!  Stay away!  Stay away!

More peace, less pollution, cleaner air
suggesting the world improves
when fewer of us are there.
Foreseeable future unforeseen.
Prat president buck-pass
swears his dirty hands are clean.