“I am the man who arranges the blocks”
Tetris and Communism: not an obvious combination. They make for a glorious song, though, in the form of A Complete History of the Soviet Union, Arranged To The Melody Of Tetris. Take revolutions, breadlines, broken ideals and dreams of brotherhood, and turn them into…blocks. Falling endlessly from the sky:
What gets to me, I think, is the worker’s face. Sometimes he’s downtrodden, sometimes triumphant. Sometimes he’s a sculpture-worthy proletarian hero — clutching a sledgehammer, his gaze stoically fixed into the distance. Always there’s something grotesque about him, an unnerving manic undertone. Revolutionary glee shifts into a forced grimace: “Long live Stalin! He loves you! Sing these words, or you know what he’ll do“. This is a one-man mob, permanently caught up in the passionate trauma of one historical moment after another.
And when the end comes, it’s beautifully understated:
I work so hard in arranging the blocks But each night I go home to my wife in tears - What’s the point of it all, when you’re building a wall And in front of your eyes it disappears? Pointless work for pointless pay This is one game I shall not play.