It's said that men look cool and hard,
When their faces are all bruised and scarred,
Not like some badly drawn cartoon,
Of a kid who's swallowed a balloon,
Or looked into a telescope,
The victim of a schoolboy joke,
But I don't care what people say,
That was how I looked that day,
Now everywhere I go it's changed,
Places that I know seem strange,
Every park or patch of green,
Looks like a future Crimewatch scene,
Down every alleyway and path,
An ugly crime scene photograph,
Something deep inside me changed,
On the day that I became a victim.
A victim of a so-so crime,
Not worthy of a yellow sign,
To match the bruise around my neck,
Changing colour as I slept,
Now there's a part of me that shakes,
With every car that overtakes,
The Jeremiah in my head,
Says everybody wants me dead,
Like the audience at a pantomime,
He tells me I should look behind me,
He says that I should run and hide,
Move out to the countryside,
“Just get yourself away from harm,
Sell the farm and buy a farm”,
Things would never be the same,
On the day that I became a victim.
Everyone I knew was sure,
I should report it to the law,
I'd get financial compensation,
If I went to my local station,
But because of cutbacks staff were short,
And since what happened in new York,
“The police station”, I told my friends,
“Only opens at weekends”,
So in the year Charles Bronson died,
I got my bad self organised,
I bought a book on martial arts,
Enrolled in a karate class,
And I wished someday a rain would come,
And wash the streets of all the scum,
Everybody says I've changed,
On the day that I became,
A victim in his early forties,
Unprovoked and unreported,
Looking for someone to blame,
On the day that I became a victim,
Everybody says I've changed,
On the day that I became a victim.