For the Love of the Game

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Corporate society, the paradise no one asked for 

Everyone works for us, toward us, generations of sheep

Shepherds few, gathered around our executive table

They’d love to knock down our door 

But they’d have to know to look in such exquisite places, their eyes have never turned so high before!

Aha-ha! Grace those who know their stations, serve and toil dutifully 

I love to see them work their life away, the loyalty to big Energy, it brightens my day beautifully 

Which brings the Board to the matter of Jonathan E. 

Bartholomew, Chairman of the Energy Corporation, seated in Houston

Just handed the task to inform one Rollerballer that his career is done

Announces a televised special, featuring Jonathan’s career in multivision 

Did you catch Houston vs Madrid?

Who are you trying to kid?

I haven’t missed a game yet, I wouldn’t now if it was the last thing I ever did 

There’s rumors in the air, rumors on the street, propaganda floats from open leaks

I hear Jonathan is going to announce his retirement on a big show in a few weeks

Now, this lavish retirement package is all set, all you’ve got to do speak it to power

Jonathan listening, a bunch of hot air in a suit talks for five minutes and says as much in an hour

The two seem to have crossed a wire, 

Butting heads when he refuses to retire

Maybe you should have said why, sir 

He also requested to see his ex-wife sir, 

She was reappropriated by a corporate executive who wanted her, 

Perhaps if this goes much farther, she can be a messenger… 

Savvy of their ways, he can smell a coup for days

Knowledge, that’s real power, so it doesn’t strike him as strange

That he finds all books on corporate history have been changed 

And hidden in the memory vaults of their supercomputers, at protected locales 

Jonathan can’t rightly figure out why they’re so shook about the best Rollerball player in the world

Neither can an Energy executive he asks for information, just one of his old pals 

Well, he’s not keen on playing by our rules in our world 

We’ll go and change his! 

Semi-finals, Houston vs Tokyo, no penalties, limited substitutions, multiple deaths, broken bones and contusions 

Fractured skulls, comatose players, bloody bodies wrecked and left wrung out with a broken neck 

We raise the stakes on the track, crush their knees, break their back 

His best friend claimed in the senseless slaughter, and another irreversibly vegetative 

Jonathan, Houston wins, and he manages to live 

The doctors pressure him to pull life support, his disrespect, defiant and tall

His teammate is braindead, they cite the rules of the facility, no family, permit me to kill him please

There aren’t rules. There aren’t any rules at all. 

Even a plant senses life. It turns towards the sun. It’s alive isn’t it?

Talking to the bedside body in a Houston hospital, 

He will dream he’s an executive, hands on all the controls 

Bartholomew wishes him sweet dreams, and he will wear a gray suit and make decisions 

But you know what, all the executives dream about behind their desks, reversed roles 

That they’re Jonathan, with muscles, bashing in faces, their enemies give in

And they skate free; all that unrestrained barbarism and he only has to score goals 

Post Tokyo bloodbath, the board reconvenes 

The truth behind the threat of a Rollerball champion is revealed behind the scenes 

The finals pit against each other the New York and Houston teams, 

More importantly, Jonathan, who defeats the purpose of the game 

By standing out he establishes individuality, they shouldn’t even know his name!

The entire point is to exercise the futility of individualism and satisfy bloodlust 

And with a people’s champion at the helm of the sport, the answer is clear

No penalties, no time limit, no substitutions, Jonathan will die or lose; he must!

All in favor, no accidents, no sabotage, through natural defeat he will not live?

Affirmative. Affirmative. Affirmative. Affirmative. Affirmative. Affirmative.  

Zero, the central supercomputer for the world in Geneva 

A repository of all human knowledge, which seems to be a 

Bit off by quite a bit of data they hate to admit and let’s face it

Is there much surprise that the corporations bank of knowledge is a disgrace with, 

Seemingly senile tendencies, their computer misplaced the thirteenth century, even the technicians can’t explain, but the bulbs are lit

Uh, yeah, I don’t know sir, it just seems like it’s not up to the task, what’d you want to ask?

He’s just a man whose career is a team sport revolving around getting a ball to a hole, 

And they talk all this jargon, blow smoke and say nothing, he just wants to know how the corporations determine their goals

A final offer, by form of his former wife comes to try to talk him out of the deathmatch that is to come

In her eyes she is sold out, she’s only there to do bidding, an insult to his stirred mind that only hurts

I’ve been thinking, people had a choice between having all these nice things or freedom and we chose comfort! 

But comfort is freedom, it always has been, history will show that poverty is an enemy of civilization, we struggled against need

No, they appeal to us, placate us, give us cards for our complacency to own us with our greed 

They want me to quit, and she shudders, urging him on 

That is why I came here, you have to, and he sees through it all now

Did they tell you if you got me to do it, that you’d have to stay with me? Are you my prize to be won? 

Jonathan didn’t want to hear another word, 

Disgust and rage, they turned her into a reward 

New York is little more than a gladiatorial battle 

Death on wheels, you can hear the blades scraping

Around and around they go 

Hell on wheels, fires explode from the motorcyclists

The brutality erupts in spurts of blood, all players dying 

Burning and broken and splayed and destroyed and screaming and crying

And twisted and contorted and smashed and ground and ripped and torn 

No semblance of mercy for a moment is shown, no humanity in the war is born 

It is murder, ten players on each team, down to three, 

No scoring game, New York with a biker and a skater up 

And Jonathan disrupts, the bike erupts, right in front of Bartholomew so he can see

He takes the ball, heavy steel, holds it over the last man’s head, his savage murder, mercy interrupts 

And he leaves him laying, thankful for his life, two men out of twenty in one game survived

As he skates, blades scraping, fires crackling, flames taller than men stand by 

It is so deathly silent in the arena that you could hear a dead man sigh  

The maiming and death and deception, the ice cold, exhausted look in his eye 

He raises the ball overhead, where the crowd can see it up high 

And scores one point before he goes around, 

Slowly, arm in tatters, blood across his face and uniform in splatters

He throws his helmet and his glove down to echo in the silence, little clatters

He comes around again, the whispers of his name start to build to a chant 

The champion! He just has to win! The roof comes off, they’re roaring now! 

Jonathan! Jonathan! Jonathan! Jonathan! Jonathan! Jonathan! Jonathan! Jonathan!