Take down the Union Jack   It clashes with the sunset   And put it in the attic with the emperors old clothes   When did it fall apart?   Sometime in the eighties   When the great and the good gave way   to the greedy and the mean      Britain isn't cool, you know   It's really not that great   It's not a proper country   It doesn't even have a patron saint   It's just an economic union   That's past its sell-by date      Take down the Union Jack   It clashes with the sunset   And ask our Scottish neighbors   if independence looks any good   'Cause they just might understand   how to take an abstract notion of personal identity   and turn it into nationhood      Is this the 19th Century   that I'm watching on TV   The dear old queen of england   handing out those MBEs   Member of the British Empire   that doesn't sound too good to me   Gilbert and George are taking the piss aren't they   Gilbert and George are taking the piss   What could be more British than is a picture of me bum   Gilbert and George are taking the piss      Take down the Union Jack   It clashes with the sunset   and pile up all those history books but don't throw them away   They just might have some clues about what it really means   to be an anglo hyphen saxon in England dot Co dot U-K   to be an anglo hyphen saxon in England dot Co dot U-K