Versions

Version	Length	Source	Availability
Studio	5:15	Mark Seymour Westgate album.	Moderately common. Available new in CD and digital form.
Live [1]	5:51	Mark Seymour From Bondi to Bedlam album and video.	Moderately common. Available new in CD, DVD and digital form.
Live [2]	4:48	Mark Seymour Roll Back The Stone album.	Moderately common. Available new in CD and digital form.

Recommended Version.

Commentary

Mark’s “Westgate” album track comments:

“Khrushchev, Bush, Nixon, Alexander the Great, Mao, Berlusconi, Henry the Eighth, Churchill, Olmert, Menzies, Muldoon, Xiaoping, Putin, Marcos, Howard and all the other great spin doctors of Human history.”

Lyrics

There came out of nowhere a God fearing man
Who dreamed of a world he was born to command
The love of the people he was yearning to win
Well he came to be known as the master of spin

He was born in a time full of darkness and fear
The thunder of cannons was distant but clear
His mother leaned down and she whispered to him
“Don’t you ever say sorry and never give in”

She teased him and pushed him and jeered from behind
So nobody noticed how quickly he climbed
Every turn that he took was a means to an end
His temper grew rigid while others did bend

Oh Lord, let the bells ring
For the hard little man who was hollow within
Power without glory is a heartbreaking thing
On the road to nowhere with the master of spin

Well the people believed in the stories he told
Of glory and conquest and hunger for gold
He built an army and vowed it would win
And they marched into history with the master of spin

Well they struggled bravely through rivers of blood
The corpses grew higher, and the fire and the flood
Oh how they suffered for following him
But they worshipped the man called the master of spin

Oh Lord, let the bells ring
For the hard little man who was hollow within
Power without glory is a heartbreaking thing
On the road to nowhere with the master of spin

Still it didn’t take much to bring him undone
A small indiscretion, the slip of the tongue
The fool and the mistress and the monster within
They all blew the whistle on the master of spin

They say in this life there is one lesson to learn
The strong will survive and the weakest will burn
Perhaps she was wrong when she whispered to him
“Don’t you ever say sorry and never give in”

El Dorado still waits to be found
And the glorious armies are long in the ground
And a terrible darkness still lies deep within
The heart of a man called the master of spin

Oh Lord, let the bells ring
For the hard little man who was hollow within
Power without glory is a heartbreaking thing
On the road to nowhere with the master of spin

Oh Lord, let the bells ring
For the hard little man who was hollow within
Power without glory is a heartbreaking thing
On the road to nowhere with the master of spin

On the road to nowhere with the master of spin