I feel I should provide a few thoughts about the last song. This is because at first glance, the song's message may appear to be just a clichéd "look how shallow the West is". Although I cannot speak for the band, I think it's something more subtle than that. The song was released in 1994, not long after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Although I was quite young at the time, as far as I can gather there was a sudden influx of ideas/images from the West (I remember being horrified by the giant billboards), and along with all the positive things, some of the nastier facets of capitalism were also made apparent.
I guess this was a country that had been relatively "sheltered" until then, and its "immune system" (e.g. state institutions, regulations) was not strong enough to respond to the potential dangers of unbridled capitalism. Britain had grown out of the yuppie lifestyle by then, but in Hungary there was still quick buck to be made, not necessarily from sound investment, but from bribing officials -- dodgy privatisation deals were rife. The pre-democractic system brought a culture of corruption that was hard to shake off. I guess a lot of mistakes were made in those transition years, but looking back, we have to be forgiving (well, to those of honest intent), because the task was so great.
Viewed from this perspective, the ambivalence in the song is more understandable. But just as "Goodbye Lenin" is -- in my view at least -- unfairly labelled an "ostalgic" film, the song is less a satire of the West than a depiction of a confused country that wanted the freedom of democracy without the challenges it experienced when it finally came (e.g. inflation). The challenges were not democracy's fault, just as the debt inherited by a government is not the government's fault ... but invariably they are the ones being taken to task on it.
Anyway, tomorrow I plan a return to poems for a while, as I feel I've done enough songs for now.
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