This is the age of machinery

A mechanical nightmare

The wonderful world of technology

Napalm, hydrogen bombs, biological warfare

It's the age of insanity

What has become of the green pleasant fields of Jerusalem

Ain't got no ambition, I'm just disillusioned

I'm a twentieth-century man but I don't want, I don't wanna be here

My mama said she can't understand me

Just give me some security

I'm a paranoid, schizoid product of the twentieth century

You keep all your smart modern writers

Give me William Shakespeare

You keep all your smart modern painters

I'll take Rembrandt, Titian, Da Vinci and Gainsborough

I'm a twentieth-century man but I don't want, I don't want to die here

I'm a twentieth-century man but I don't want, I don't want to be here

I was born in a welfare state

Ruled by bureaucracy

Controlled by civil servants

And people dressed in grey

Got no privacy, got no liberty

'Cause the twentieth-century people

Took it all away from me

Don't wanna get myself shot down

By some trigger happy policeman

Gotta keep a hold on my sanity

My mama says she can't understand me

Ain't got no security

No more twentieth-century man

This is the edge of insanity

I'm a twentieth-century man but I don't wanna be here