In 1974,
I went to Mexico
to visit my brother
who was working as an anthropologist
with Tsutsil Indians,
the last surviving Mayan tribe.
And the Tsutsil speak a lovely birdlike language
and are quite tiny physically;
I towered over them.
Mostly, I spent my days following the women around
since my brother wasn't really allowed to do this.
We got up at 3am and began to separate the corn into three colors.
And we boiled it, ran to the mill and back,
and finally started to make the tortillas.
Now all the other women's tortillas were 360°,
perfectly toasted, perfectly round;
and even after a lot of practice
mine were still lobe-sided and charred.
And when they thought I wasn't looking
they threw them to the dogs.
After breakfast we spent the rest of the day down at the river
watching the goats and braiding and unbraiding each other's hair.
So usually there wasn't that much to report.
One day the women decided to braid my hair Tsutsil-style.
After they did this I saw my reflection in a puddle.
I looked ridiculous but they said,
“Before we did this you were ugly,
but now maybe you will find a husband."
I lived with them in a yurt,
a thatched structure shaped like a cup cake.
And there's a central fireplace ringed by sleeping shelves
sort of like a dry beaver down.
Now my Tsutsil name was Lausha,
which loosely translated means
“the ugly one with the jewels."
Now ugly, OK, I was awfully tall by local standards.
But what did they mean by the jewels?
I didn't find out what this meant until one night,
when I was taking my contact lenses out,
and since I'd lost the case
I was carefully placing them on the sleeping shelf;
suddenly I noticed that everyone was staring at me
and I realized that none of the Tsutsil had ever seen glasses,
much less contacts,
and that these were the jewels,
the transparent, perfectly round, jewels
that I carefully hid on the shelf at night
and then put - for safekeeping - into my eyes every morning.
So I may have been ugly
but so what?
I had the jewels.
Full fathom thy father lies
Of his bones are coral made
Those are pearls that were his eyes
Nothing of him that doth fade
But that suffers a sea change
Into something rich and strange
And I alone am left to tell the tale
In 1984,
as part of the press for the tour I was doing in Japan,
I was asked to go to Bali
and speak about the future with the prince of Ouboud.
Now the idea was that I would represent the Western world,
the prince the Southern world,
and the Japanese press representative would represent whatever was left.
The conversations would be published in a large book,
scheduled for release one year after the concert tour.
Now as press this didn't really seem like a great way to advertise concerts
but it sounded like fun anyway.
And I stayed at the palace in one of the former king's harem houses.
Each of the king's wives had had her own house
guarded by a pair of animals,
a bear and a fox for example.
By the time I got there, years later,
the menagerie had dwindled a bit.
My house was guarded by two tropical fish.
Bali was extremely hot in the afternoons
and the conversations with the prince
drifted along randomly from topic to topic.
The prince was a bon vivant
trained in Paris and he spoke excellent English
and when he wasn't in the palace
he was out on the bumpy back roads racing cars.
So we talked about cars,
a subject I know absolutely nothing about,
and I felt that as far as representing the Western world was going,
I was failing pretty dismally.
Then, on the second night,
the prince served an elaborate feast of Balinese dishes.
At the end of the meal,
the conversation slowed to a halt,
and after a few minutes of silence he asked:
"Would you like to see the cremation tapes of my father?"
The tapes were several hours long
and were a record of the elaborate three-month ceremony
shot by the BBC.
When the king died the whole country went to work,
building an enormous funeral pyre for him.
After months of preparation,
during which time the corpse continues to reside in the living room,
they hoisted the body to the top of this rickety,
extremely flammable structure, and lit a match.
The delicate tower crumbled almost immediately,
and the king's body fell to the ground with a sickening thud.
Suddenly, everyone began to cheer.
Later, I learned that the Balinese
believe that the soul is a bird
and that when the body falls
it shakes the bird loose
and gives it a head start
on its way
In 1978, I spent some time in California in the fall,
looking for a quiet place to live.
I finally found what seemed to be the perfect apartment.
But the night after I moved in I heard a tremendous pounding sound.
As it turned out, I had moved in right above a Hawaiian hollow log drum school.
Every other night, it was converted into a hula school
with a live band of six Hawaiian guitars.
I decided to soundproof my place
but I didn't hang the door very well
and all the sounds kept drifting in.
About this time, like a lot of New Yorkers
who find themselves on the West Coast,
I got interested in various aspects
of California's versions of the occult.
We would sit around at night
while the Santa Anna winds howled outside,
and ask questions to the ouija board.
I found out a lot of information
on my past 9, 361 human lives on this planet.
My first life was as a raccoon.
"And then you were a cow.
And then you were a bird.
And then you were a hat" spelled the Ouija.
We said “a hat?" We couldn't figure it out.
Finally we guessed that the feathers from the bird
had been made into a hat. Is this true?
"Yes" spelled the Ouija.
"Hat counts as half life."
And then?
"Hundreds and hundreds of rabbis."
Now this is apparently my first life as a woman,
which should explain quite a few things.
Eventually though, the Ouija's written words
seemed to take on a personality,
a kind of a voice.
Finally we began to ask the board
if the Ouija would be willing to appear to us in some other form.
"Forget it, forget it, forget it, forget it, forget it, forget it. "
The Ouija seemed like it was about to crash.
Please, please, what can we do we were nagging now
so you will show yourself to us in some other manifestation?
"You should lurk. You should L, U, R, K. Lurk."
Now I never really figured out how to lurk in my own place,
even though it was only a rented place,
but I did find myself looking over my shoulder a lot.
And every sound that drifted in
seemed to be a version of this phantom voice
A dark angel parachutes down into an abandoned town
He says: Oh, I've been looking for a certain white clown
Doesn't look like you're it
But you're the only one around
So I guess you'll have to do, He says
So anyway... how are you doin'?
I say, Actually, I can't stand all the new machines
It's supposed to be all brand new but it just looks the same
He says: Oh, it looks like you're bored. So try this he says to me:
Why don't you get yourself an old beret
What Fassbinder is it?
The one-armed man walks into a flower shop and says:
What flower expresses days go by
and they just keep going by endlessly
pulling you into the future.
Days go by
endlessly
Endlessly pulling you into the future.
and the florist says:
How to find you, maybe by your singing
A weird trail of notes in the water
One white whale in all these oceans
One white whale
Slipping through the nets of silence
Under polar Ice-Caps miles down
You leave your echoes in the water
One white whale in all these oceans
One white whale.
Moon rises and sets
In the real world
Islands and hurricanes
Wind blows in from Jersey
It floats across the pave
Into the open ocean
It's a good day
To run away
Freedom is a scary thing
Not many people really want it
Me, I keep my distance
I'm always leaving
That's just my way
Cool water
Now you're just another speck on the horizon
Just another speck on the sea
Cool water
Cool me
Statue of liberty
Stands in the harbor
Holding her torch
Hello, goodbye
To all the men and women
Who pass through her port
Into the open ocean
Now you're just another speck on the horizon
Just another speck on the sea
Cool water
Cool me
Freedom is a scary thing
I no longer love your mouth.
I no longer love your eyes.
I no longer love your eyes.
I no longer love the color of your sweaters.
I no longer love it.
I no longer love the color of your sweaters.
I no longer love the way you hold your pens and pencils.
I no longer love it.
Your mouth.
Your eyes.
The way you hold your pens and pencils.
I no longer love it.
Sun's going down. Like a big bald head. Disappearing behind the boulevard. (Oooeee.) It's Sharkey's night. Yeah. It's Sharkey's night tonight. And the manager says: Sharkey? He's not at his desk right now. (Oh yeah.) Could I take a message? And Sharkey says: Hey, kemosabe! Long time no see. He says: Hey sport. You connect the dots. You pick up the pieces. He says: You know, I can see two tiny pictures of myself And there's one in each of you eyes. And they're doin' everything I do. Every time I light a cigarette, they light up theirs. I take a drink and I look in and they're drinkin' too. It's drivin' me crazy. It's drivin' me nuts. And Sharkey says: Deep in the heart of darkest America. Home of the brave. He says: Listen to my heart beat. Paging Mr. Sharkey. White courtesy telephone please.
I wanted you. And I was looking for you. But I couldn't find you. I wanted you. And I was looking for you all day. But I couldn't find you. I couldn't find you. You're walking. And you don't always realize it, but you're always falling. With each step you fall forward slightly. And then catch yourself from falling. Over and over, you're falling. And then catching yourself from falling. And this is how you can be walking and falling at the same time.
My eyes snap open and I get up I say
This must be my lucky day
Jump up - get out - get on my way
Every slobbery frog and every mangy dog
That crosses my path reminds me
You're my precious jewel and you're my precious one
My compensation.
I used to live in a big house
All I ever thought about was getting out
When I met you there was something about you
Every slobbery frog and every mangy dog
That crosses my path reminds me
I love your brain. I love your brain.
I love your brain.
It was the night flight from Houston.
Almost perfect visibility.
You could see the lights
from all the little Texas towns far below.
And I was sitting next to a fifty-two year old woman
who had never been on a plane before.
And her son had sent her a ticket and said:
"Mom, you've raised ten kids; it's time you got on a plane."
She was sitting in a window seat staring out
and she kept talking about the Big Dipper and that Little Dipper and pointing;
and suddenly I realized that she thought we were in outer space
looking down at the stars.
And I said:
Let me tell you a story about Kokovoko
The island where I come from
The beaches are littered with rotten coconuts
And there are pieces of old skulls lying all around
Jewels and sand and rising water
Visions I've seen and cries I've heard
I can't put these things into words
Might as well put some beans
In a hollow gourd and shake it, shake it
I've floated on an icecap with a white polar bear
I've floated up and down the golden stairs
I've seen whales and caught in sails all twiskeetwee
But me? I don't say much
Jewels and sand and rising water
Visions I've seen and cries I've heard
I can't put these things into words
Might as well put some beans
In a hollow gourd
There are lots of people who talk just to hear the sound
The sound, the sound of their own voices
But take an empty shell and put it up to your ear
You can hear the ocean rumbling around in there
Ooo the greasy wheel it goes round
The humming of the breeze it makes a whishing
and whirring sound
The sudden silence when the burning sun goes down
Jewels and sand and rising water
Visions I've seen and cries I've heard
I can't put these things into words
Might as well put some beans
The summer of 1974
was brutally hot in New York
and I kept thinking about how nice and icy it must be at the North Pole.
And then I though, “Wait a second, why not go?"
You know, like in cartoons
where they hang going to the North Pole on their door knobs and they just take off.
So I spent a couple of weeks preparing for the trip,
getting a hatchet, a huge backpack, maps, knives,
sleeping bags, lures and a three month supply of Banic,
a versatile high-protein paste
that can be made into flat bread, biscuits or cereal.
Now I had decided to hitch hike
and one day I just walked out onto Houstin Street,
weighing down seventy pounds of gear,
and stuck out my thumb.
— Going North? I asked the driver as I struggled into a station wagon.
After I got out of New York,
most of the rides were trucks until I reached the Hudson Bay
and began to hitch in small mail planes.
The pilots were usually guys who'd gone to Canada
to avoid the draft
or else embittered Vietnam vets
who never wanted to go home again.
Either way they always wanted to show off a few of their stunts.
We'd go swooping low along the rivers doing loop do loops and baby hueys.
And they'd drop me off at an airstrip.
“There'll be another plane by here couple of weeks; see ya; good luck.
I never did make it all the way to the geographic pole;
it turned out to be a restricted area
and no one was allowed to fly in or even over it.
I did get within a few miles of the magnetic pole though.
So it wasn't really that disappointing.
I entertained myself in the evenings,
cooking or smoking,
and watching the blazing light
of the huge Canadian sunsets
as they turned the lake into fire.
Later I lay on by back,
looking up at the Northern lights
and imagining there'd been a nuclear holocaust
and that I was the only human being left in all of North America
and what would I do then.
And then, when these lights went out,
I stretched out on the ground,
watching the stars as they turned around
and their enormous silent wheels.
I finally decided to turn back because of my hatchet.
I'd been chopping some wood and the hatchet flew out of my hand on the upswing.
And I did what you should never do when this happens:
I looked up to see where it had gone
and it came down — fffooo — just missing my head
and I thought,
“My God! I could be working around here with a hatchet embedded in my skull
and I'm ten miles from the airstrip.
And nobody in the whole world knows where I am."
Daddy Daddy, it was just like you said
Now that the living outnumber the dead
Where I come from it's a long thin thread
Across an ocean. Down a river of red
Now that the living outnumber the dead
I don't know about your dreams
But mine are sort of hackneyed.
Same thing, night after night.
Just... repetitive.
And the color is really bad -
And the themes are just infantile.
And you always get what you want -
And that's just not the way life is.
First National Bank? I love it!
New Hat? Forget it!
Moby Dick? Never read it!
I came home today
And both our cars were gone.
And there were all these new pink
Flamingoes arranged in star patterns
All over the lawn.
Then I went into the kitchen
And it looked like a tornado had hit.
And then I realized I was in the wrong House.
Last night I had that dream again.
I dreamed I had to take a test
In a Dairy Queen on another planet.
And then I looked around
And there was this woman.
And she was making it all up.
She was writing it all down.
And she was laughing.
She was laughing her head off.
And I said: Hey! Give me that pen!
I turned the corner in Soho today and someone
Looked right at me and said:
Oh No! Another Laurie Anderson clone!
And I said: Look at me!
Look at me! Look at me!
Look at me! Look at me!
Look at me! Look at me!
Look at me! Look at me!
Anyway, I was in Israel as a kind of cultural ambassador and there were lots of press conferences scheduled around the performances. The journalists usually started things off by asking about the avant-garde.
So, what's so good about new? they'd ask.
Well, new is interesting.
And what, they would say, is so good about interesting?
Well, interesting is, you know it's interesting. It's like being awake, you know, I'm treading water now.
And what is so good about being awake? they'd say.
Finally I got the hang of this: never answer a question in Israel, always answer by asking another question. But the Israelis were vey curious about the Gulf War and what Americans had thought about it, and I tried to think of a good question to ask and answer to this, but what was really on my mind was that the week before I had myself been testing explosives in a parking lot in Tel Aviv. Now this happened because I had brought some small stage bombs to Israel as props for this performance and the Israeli promoter was very interested in them. And it turned out that he was on weekend duty on one of the bomb squads, and bombs were also something of a hobby during the week. So I said:
Look, you know, these bombs are nothing special, just, just a little smoke
And he said:
Well, we can get much better things for you.
And I said:
No really, these are fine
And he said:
No but it should be big, theatrical. It should make an impression, I mean you really just the right bomb.
And so one morning he arranged to have about fifty small bombs delivered to a parking lot, and since he looked on it as a sort of special surprise favor, I couldn't really refuse, so we are on this parking lot testing the bombs, and after the first few explosions, I found I was really getting pretty interested.
They all had very different characteristics: some had fiery orange tails, and made these low paah, paah, paah, popping sound; others exploded mid-air and left long smoky, slinky trails, and he had several of each kind in case I needed to review them all at the end, and I'm thinking:
Here I am, a citizen of the world's largest arms supplier, setting off bombs with the world's second largest arms customer, and I'm having a great time!
So even though the diplomatic part of the trip wasn't going so well, at least I was getting some instruction in terrorism. And it reminded me of something in a book by Don DeLillo about how terrorists are the only true artists left, because they're the only ones who are still capable of really surprising people. And the other thing it reminded me of, were all the attempts during the Gulf War to outwit the terrorists, and I especially remember an interesting list of tips devised by the US embassy in Madrid, and these tips were designed for Americans who found themselves in war-time airports. The idea was not to call ourselves to the attention of the numerous foreign terrorists who were presumably lurking all over the terminal, so the embassy tips were a list of mostly don'ts. Things like: don't wear a baseball cap; don't wear a sweat shirt with the name of an American university on it; don't wear Timberlands with no socks; don't chew gum; don't yell Ethel, our plane is leaving! . I mean it's weird when your entire culture can be summed up in eight giveaway characteristics.
And during the Gulf War I was traveling around Europe with a lot of equipment, and all the airports were full of security guards who would suddenly point to a suitcase and start yelling:
Whose bag is this? I wanna know right now who owns this bag.
And huge groups of passengers would start #170430 out for the bag, just running around in circles like a Skud missile on its way in, and I was carrying a lot of electronics so I had to keep unpacking everything and plugging it in and demonstrating how it all worked, and I guessed I did seem a little fishy; a lot of this stuff wakes up displaying LED program readouts that have names like Adam Smasher, and so it took a while to convince them that they weren't some kind of espionage system. So I've done quite a few of these sort of impromptu new music concerts for small groups of detectives and customs agents and I'd have to keep setting all this stuff up and they'd listen for a while and they'd say:
So uh, what's this?
And I'd pull out something like this filter and say:
Now this is what I'd like to think of as the voice of Authority.
And it would take me a while to tell them how I used it for songs that were, you know, about various forms of control, and they would say:
Now, why would you want to talk like that?
And I'd look around at the ###170549 and the undercover agents and the dogs and the radio in the corner, tuned to the Superbowl coverage of the war. And I'd say:
Take a wild guess.
Finally of course, I got through, with this after all American-made equipment, and the customs agents were all talking about the effectiveness,
What's this? A little dust in my eye
Well I'm not the type to cry
It's four a.m. I'm standing by the bed where you lie
Sleeping the sleep of the newborn
I put [my] finger to your lips. Warm air.
Five a.m. You lift your hand and open it.
Then you slipped away. You slipped away.
Oh death, that creep, that crooked jerk...
He comes, he comes walking. He comes sneaking
Down that long irreversible hallway
Grabs you in your sleep
I walk outside to the parking lot.
Bright coins of water on the sidewalk.
Big white building where your body lies
Stands in the middle of the fields. Icy air.
And after all the shocks the way the heart unlocks
And ooo we slip away. We slip away.
I'm thinking about the way that lost things always come back
Looking like something else
A fishing pole, a shoe, an old shirt, a lucky day
Ooo then they slip away into the remains of the day
Ooo they slip away. They slip away.
I'm thinking how you taught me how to win
And how to loose
And how to fight the crippling blues that I was born with
Bad dreams and nightmares
Ooo they slip away. Ooo they slip away into the remains of the day.
I know that sometime I'll stop looking for you.
Stop seeing your face every day
Bad dreams and nightmares and big bad wolves
Ooo they slip away into the remains of the day
Ooo they slip away into the remains of the day
They slip away
You told me you had no idea how to die but I saw
The way the light left your eyes
And after all the shocks the way the heart unlocks
And ooo then you slipped away. You slipped away.
[Instrumental]
There was a devout nun in the XVth century who decided to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; and she belonged to an order that wore bags over their heads. And the mother superior told the nun that if she walked through the countryside with a bag on her head, she would scare people.
L-L-L L-L-Listen Listen T- L-L- Listen to my hearbeat.
There is a hot wind blowing It moves across teh oceand and into every port. A plague. A black plague. There's danger everywhere And you've been sailing. And you're alone on an island now tuning in. Did you think this was the way Your world would end? Hombres. Sailors. Comrades. There is no pure land now No safe plave And we stand here by the pier Watching you drown. Love among the Sailors. Love among the Sailors. There is a hot wind blowing Plague drifts across the oceans. And if this is the work of an angry god I want to look into his angry face. There is no pure land now. No safe place. Come with us to the mountains. Hombres. Sailors. Comrades.
I met this guy - and he looked like might have been a hat check clerk at an ice rink. Which, in fact, he turned out to be. And I said: Oh boy. Right again. Let X=X. You know, it could be you. It's a sky-blue sky. Satellites are out tonight. Let X=X. You know, I could write a book. And this book would be think enough to stun an ox. Cause I can see the future and it's a place - about 70 miles east of here. Where it's lighter. Linger on over here. Got the time? Let X=X. I got this postcard. And it read, it said: Dear Amigo - Dear Partner. Listen, uh - I just want to say thanks. So...thanks. Thanks for all the presents. Thanks for introducing me to the Chief. Thanks for putting on the feedbag. Thanks for going all out. Thanks for showing me your Swiss Army knife. and uh - Thanks for letting me autograph your cast. Hug and kisses. XXXXOOOO. Oh yeah, P.S. I - feel - feel like - I am - in a burning building - and I gotta go. Cause I - I feel - feel like - I am - in a burning building - and I gotta go.
A summer night the hot the heat
Sit at my desk fluorescent light
Drawing a picture of a perfect moment
I saw it once on a grand avenue
That stretched into the distance
And you and I were walking there
Lost in the moment
Life on a string
Life on a string
Some people know exactly where they're going
The pilgrims to Mecca
The climbers to the mountaintop
But me, I'm just looking
For just a single moment
So I can slip through time
Life on a string
Life on a string.
Instrumental
[Instrumental]
Now in this book there are a lot of stories about talking animals: talking snakes, and birds, and fish; and about people who try to communicate with them.
John Lilly, the guy who says he can talk to dolphins, said he was in an aquarium and he was talking to a big whale who was swimming around and around in his tank. And the whale kept asking him questions telepathically. And one of the questions the whale kept asking was: do all oceans have walls?
In our sleep as we speak listen to the drums beat as we speak in our sleep as we speak listen to the drums beat in our sleep in our sleep as we speak listen to the drums beat as we speak as we s
In our sleep listen to the drums beat in our sleep in our sleep as we speak listen to the drums beat as we speak in our sleep as we speak listen to the drums beat in our sleep in our sleep where
Beispiele paranormale Tonbandstimmen. Was sind paranormale Tonbandstimmen? Es sind Stimmen unbekannter Herkunft. Es sind paranormaler Tonbandstimmen- (Examples of paranormal voices on tape. What are paranormal voices on tape? They are voices of unknown origin. They are paranormal voices on tape-) Ihren Klang. Ich verstehe die Sprachen. Ich verstehe die Sprachen nicht. Ich hore nur Irhen Klang. (Your sound. I understand the languages. I don't understand the languages. I hear only your sound.) The sun is shining slowly The birds are flying so low. Honey you're my one and only, So pay my what you owe me. Lights are going down, slowly, In the woods the animals are moving. In my dreams you're talking to me. Your voice is moving through me. You talk as if you knew me. So pay me what you owe me. Beispiel Nummer zweiundzwanzig. (Example #22.) The sun is shining slowly The birds are flying so low. Honey you're my one and only So pay me what you owe me.
Did she fall or was she pushed? Your shirt on my chair Your shirt on my chair I'll be with you. I'll be there. I'll never leave you Your shirt on my chair. Come here little girl. Get into the car. It's a brand new Cadillac. Bright red. Your words in my ears. I'll be with you. I'll be there. I'll never leave you. Wild beasts shall rest there And owls shall answer one another there And the hairy ones shall dance there And sirens in the temples of pleasure. Your shirt on my chair. I'll be with you. I'll be there. I'll never leave you. Your shirt on my chair.
Good evening.
This is your Captain.
We are about to attempt a crash landing.
Please extinuish all cigarettes.
Place your tray tables in their upright, locked position.
Your Captain says: Put your head on your knees. Your Captain says: Put your head on your hands. Captain says: Put your hands on your head.
Put your hands on your hips.
Heh heh.
This is your Captain-and we are going down.
We are all going down, together.
And I said: Uh oh.
This is gonna be some day.
Standby.
This is the time.
And this is the record of the time.
This is the time.
And this is the record of the time.
Uh-this is your Captain again.
You know, I've got a funny feeling
I've seen this all before.
Why?
Cause I'm a caveman.
Why?
Cause I've got eyes in the back of my head.
Why?
It's the heat.
Standby.
This is the time.
And this is the record of the time.
This is the time.
And this is the record of the time.
Put your hands over your eyes.
Jump out of the plane.
There is no pilot.
You are not alone.
Standby.
This is the time.
And this is the
record of the time.
This is the time.
I don't know about your brain- but mine is really bossy I come home from a day on the golf course and I find all these messages scribbled on wrinkled up scraps of paper And they say thing like: Why don't you get a real job? Or: You and what army? Or: Get a horse. And then I hear this voice comin from the back of my head Uh huh (Whoa-ho) Yep! It's my brain again And when my brain talks to me, he says: Take me out to the ballgame Take me out to the park Take me to the movies Cause I love to sit in the dark Take me to Tahiti Cause I love to be hot And take me out on the town tonight Cause I know the new hot spot. He says: Babydoll! Ooo oo oo Babydoll Ooo He says: Babydoll! I love it when you come when I call Babydoll! You don't have to talk I know it all Babydoll! Ooo oo oo Babydoll Ooo Well I'm sitting around trying to write a letter I'm wracking my brains trying to think of another word for horse I ask my brain for some assistance. And he says: Huh...Let's see...How about cow? That's close. He says: Take me ou
t to the ballgame Take me out to the park Take me to the movies Cause I love to sit in the dark Take me to your leader And I say: Do you mean George? And he says: I just want to meet him And I say: Come on I mean I don't even know George! And he says: Babydoll! Ooo oo oo Babydoll Ooo He says: Babydoll! I love it when you come when I call Babydoll! You don't have to talk I know it all Babydoll! Ooo oo oo Babydoll Ooo Babydoll! Babydoll! Ooo oo oo Babydoll! Babydoll! Ooo oo oo Babydoll! Babydoll! Ooo oo oo
Hansel and Gretel are alive and well And they're living in Berlin She is a cocktail waitress He had a part in a Fassbinder film And they sit around at night now drinking schnapps and gin And she says: Hansel, you're really bringing me down And he says: Gretel, yu can really be a bitch He says: I've wated my life on our stupid legend When my one and only love was the wicked witch. She said: What is history? And he said: History is an angel being blown backwards into the future He said: History is a pile of debris And the angel wants to go back and fix things To repair the things that have been broken But there is a storm blowing from Paradise And the storm keeps blowing the angel backwards into the future And this storm, this storm is called Progress
Well I stopped in at the Body Shop Said to the guy: I want stereo FM installed in my teeth And take this mole off my back and put it on my cheek. And uh...while I'm here, why don't you give me some of those high-heeled feet? And he said: Listen there's no guarantee Nature's got rules and Nature's got laws but listen look out for the monkey's paw And I said: Whaaat? He said: The gift of life it's a twist of fate It's a roll of the die It's a free lunch A free ride But Nature's got rules and Nature's got laws And if you cross her look out! It's the monkey's paw It's sayin: Haw haw! It's saying Gimme five! It's sayin: Bye bye! I know a man he lost his head He said: The way I feel I'd be better off dead. He said: I got everything I ever wanted Now I can't give it up It's a trap, just my luck! The gift of life it's a leap of faith It's a roll of the die It's a free lunch A free ride The gift of life it's a shot in the dark It's the call of the wild It's the big wheel The big ride But Nature's got rules and Nature'
s got laws And if you cross her look out! It's the monkey's paw You better Stop! Look around! Listen! You- could- be- an- oca- rina- salesman- going- from- door- to- door. Or- would- you- like- to- swing- on- a- star- and- carry- moon- beams- home? Or- next- time- around- you- could- be- a- small- bug- Or- would- you- like- to- be- a- fish? The gift of life it's a twist of fate It's a roll of the die it's a free lunch A free ride The gift of life it's a shot in the dark It's the call of the wild It's the big wheel The big ride But Nature's got rules and Nature's got laws And if you cross her look out! It's the monkey's paw It's singin': Gimme Five! It's singin': Bye Bye!
Sun's coming up. Like a big bald head. Poking up over the grocery store. It's Sharkey's day. It's Sharkey's day today. Sharkey wakes up and Sharkey says: There was this man... And there was this road...And if only I could remember these dreams... I know they're trying to tell me...something. Ooooeee. Strange dreams.(Strange dreams). Oh yeah. And Sharkey says: I turn around, it's fear. I turn around aagain And it's love. Oh yeah. Strange dreams. And the little girls sing:Oooee Sharkey. And the manager says: Mr. Sharkey? He's not at his desk right now. Could I take a message? And the little girls sing:Oooeee Sharkey. He's Mister Heartbreak. They sing: Oooeee Sharkey. Yeah. He's Mister Heartbreak. And Sharkey says: All of nature talks to me. If I could just figure out what it was trying to tell me. Listen! Trees are swinging in the breeze. They're talking to me. Insects are rubbing their legs together. They're all talking. They're talking to me. And short animals- They're bucking up on their hind legs. Talking.
Talking to me. Hey! Look out! Bugs are crawling up my legs! You know? I'd rather see this on TV. Tones it down. And Sharkey says: I turn around, it's fear. I turn around again, and it's love. Nobody knows me. Nobody knows my name. And Sharkey says: All night long I think of those little planes up there. Flying around. UYou can't even see them. They're specks! And they're full of tiny people. Going places. And Sharkey says: You know? I bet they could all land on the head of a pin. And the little girls sing: Ooooeee. Sharkey! He's Mister Heartbreak. They sing: Oooeee. That Sharkey! He's a slow dance on the edge of the lake. He's a whole landscape gone to seed. He's gone wild! He's screeching tires on an oil slick at midnight on the road to Boston a long time ago. And Sharkey says: Lights! Camera! Action! TIMBER! At the beginning of the movie, they know they have to find each other. But they ride off in opposite directions. Sharkey says: I turn around, it's fear. I turn around again, and it's love. Nobody knows
me. Nobody knows my name. You know? They're growing mechanical trees. They grow to their full height. And then they chop themselves down. Sharkey says: All of life comes from some strange lagoon. It rises up, it bucks up to it's full height from a boggy swamp on a foggy night. It creeps into your house. It's life! It's life! I turn around, it's fear. I turn around again, and it's love. Nobody knows me. Nobody knows my name. Deep in the heart of darkest America. Home of the brave. Ha! Ha! Ha! You've already paid for this. Listen to my heart beat. And the little girls sing: Oooeee Sharkey. He's a slow dance on the edge of the lake. They sing:Ooooeeee. Sharkey. HEe's Mister Heartbreak. Paging Mr. Sharkey. White courtesy telephone please. And Sharkey says: I turn around, it's fear. I turn around again, and it's love. And the little girls sing:Ooooeee Sharkey. Yeah. On top of Old Smokey all covered with snow. That's where I wanna, that's where I'm gonna That's where I'm gonna go.
Paradise
Is exactly like
Where you are right now
Only much much
Better.
I saw this guy on the train
And he seemed to have gotten stuck
In one of those abstract trances.
And he was going: "Ugh . . . Ugh . . . Ugh . . . "
And Fred said:
l think he's in some kind of pain.I think it's a pain cry.
And I said: "Pain cry?
Then language is a virus."
Language! It's a virus!
Language! It's a virus!
Well I was talking to a friend
And I was saying:
I wanted you.
And I was looking for yov.
But I couldn't find you. I couldn't find you.
And he said: Hey!
Are you talking to me?
Or are you just practicing
For one of those performances of yours?
Huh?
Language! It's a virus!
Language! It's a virus!
He said: I had to write that letter to your mother
And I had to tell the judge that it was you.
And I had to sell the car and go to Florida.
Becaure that's just my way of saying (It's a charm.)
That I love you. And I (It's a job.)
Had to call you at the crack of dawn (Why?)
And list the times that I've been wrong.
Cause that's just my way of saying
That I'm sorry. (It's a job.)
Language! It's a virus!
Language! It's a virus!
Paradise
Is exactly like
Where you are right now
Only much much (It's a shipwreck
Better. (It's a job.)
You know? I don't believe there's such
o thing as TV. I mean -
They just keep showing you
The same pictures over ond over.
And when they talk they just make sounds
That more or less synch up
With their lips.
That's what I think!
Language! It's a virus!
Language! It's a virus!
Language! It's a virus!
Well I dreamed there was an island
That rose up from the sea.
And everybody on the island
Was somebody from TV.
And there was a beautiful view
But nobody could see.
Cause everybody on the island
Was saying: Look ot me! Look at me!
Look at me! Look at me!
Because they all lived on an island
That rose up from the sea
And everybody on the island
Was somebody from TV.
And there was a beautiful view
But nobody could see.
Cause everybody on the island
Was screaming: Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!
Look at me! Look at me! Why?
Paradise
Is exactly like
Where you are right now
Only much much
I live on the highway Near the Puppet Motel I log in every day I know the neighborhood well. No about the residents Of the Puppet Motel They're more than a little spooky And most of them are mean. They're runnin' the numbers They're playin' cops and robbers Down in the dungeons Inside their machines. Cause they don't know What's really real now they're havin' fourth dimentional dreams Their minds are out on bail now And real is only what it seems. And all the puppets in this digital jail They're runnin' around in a frenzy In search of the Holy Grail. They're havin' virtual sex. They're eatin' virtual food. No wonder these puppets Are always in a lousy mood. So if you think we live in a modern world Where everything is clean and swell Take a walk on the B side of town Down by the Puppet Motel Take a whiff. Burning Plastic. I drink a cup of coffee I try to revive My mind's a blank I'm barely alive My nerves are shot I feel like hell Guess it's time to check in At the Puppet Motel. Boot up. Good afternoon. Pause
. Oooo. I really llike the way you talk. Pardon me. Shut down.
It was August. Summer of '82. You had that rusty old car And me I had nothing better to do You picked me up. We hit the road. Baby me and you. We shot out of town Drivin' fast and hard Leaving our greasy skid marks In people's back yards. We were goin' nowhere. Just drivin' around. We were goin' in circles. And me I was just hanging on. Like in that Annie Dillard book Where she sees that eagle With the skull of a weasel Hanging from its neck And here's how it happened, listen. Eagle bites the weasel. Weasel bites back They fly up to nowhere. Weasel keeps hangin' on. Together forever. We were goin' nowhere. Just drivin' around. You did all the talking and me I didnt' make a sound If I open my mouth now I'll fall to the ground If I open my mouth There's so much I'd say Like I can never be honest. Like I'm in it for the thrill. Like I never loved anyone. And I never will. Eagle bites the weasel. Weasel bites back. They fly up to nowhere. Wesel keeps hanging on. Together forever. I remember that old coat. My gran
dma used to wear Made of weasels Biting each other's tails A vicious circle And endless ride On the back of an old woman. Eagle bites the weasel. Weasel bites back. They fly up to nowhere. Wesel keeps hanging on. Together forever. And me? I'm goin' in circles. I'm circling aruond. And if I open my mouth now I'll fall to the ground.
It was one of those black cat nights The moon had gone out and the air was thin It was the kind of night that the cat would drag in. I'll never forget it, we had a fight. Then you turned around turned on the light. You left our bed. Then you moved downstairs to live with her instead. Yeah just one floor and a shout away, I guess I should have moved but I decided to stay. Did I drink some poison that I don't remember now? And every night I open all the windows I let a cold dark wind blow through. I play loud organ music and I talk to myself and dream of you. Uh oh! I hear voices coming up through the pipes through all the springs in my bed and up through the lights The volume goes up then it drops back down I can hear the two of you playing records moving furniture and fooling around. Did I drink some poison that I don't remember now? Is there blood on my hands/ No, my hands are clean. Did I do something in another lifetime that was really really mean? Yeah, I'm hearing voices. Am I losing my mind? Think I'm g
oing craz, I gotta get out. I run into the street and I start to shout Get ou of my way! Get out! Get out! Did I drink some poison that I don't remember now? Is there blood on my hands? Did I do something in another lifetime that was really really mean? A small bullet, a piece of glass And your heart just grows around it.
Rain keeps pouring down Houses are cracking. People drown. Cars are rusting here. A church floats by Washed in the blood of the lamb. And all the superhighways have disappeared One by one. And all the towns and cities and signs Are underwater now. They're gone. We're going down my the muddy river We're walking down by the muddy river Somebody tell me please: What happened here? Mud is everywhere. Fish are swimming in the fields. Everybody's running arund, they're yelling Is this the end of the known world? Men and women in their boats Try to save what they've lost. They're yelling, It's all gone now. We're never gonna find it again. But when the muddy river starts to rise It covers us all. And when I look into your eyes Two tiny clocks two crystal balls We begin again. We try We begin again. Down by We're going down by down by the muddy river. We begin again down by the muddy river We're walking down by down by the muddy river. We're going down by down by the muddy river.
Well I had a dream and in it I was teaching cave people
how to use blenders and toasters. I drive up to the
cave in my car. Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey. In my car.
And there they are banging their heads against the
walls of the cave. And I say: Hey folks! Listen, you're
doing it the hard way. Lemme show you a thing or two.
One. Two. Three. Four.
Well I was trying to think of something to tell you
about myself, and I came across this brochure they're
handing out in the lobby. And it says everything I
wanted to say--only better.
It says: Laurie Anderson, in her epic performance of
United States Parts 1 through 4, has been baffling
audiences for years with her special blend of music ...
slides ... films ... tapes ... films (did I say films?)
... hand gestures and more. Hey hey hey hey hey hey
hey! (Much more.)
Let's take a look around the stage at what we like to
call The System--i.e., the highly sophisticated (very
expensive) state-of-the-art gadgetry with which I cast
my spell.
Now let me tell you something: this stuff does not grow
on trees.
Well I was out in L.A. recently on music business, and
I was just sitting there in the office filling them in
on some of my goals.
And I said: Listen, I've got a vision. I see myself as
part of a long tradition of American humor. You know--
Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd,
Roadrunner, Yosemite Sam.
And they said; "Well actually, we had something a
little more adult in mind."
And I said: "OK! OK! Listen, I can adapt!"
Lucy I'm home. Lucy, I'm home!
LUCY? I'm home!!
Sky flying birds. Flying over cities.
Flying over mountains,
Sky flying moon. Sailing over wide plains.
Pulling on the oceans.
Snow flies around. Snow flies around.
Snow flies around. It's falling on the circus.
Falling on the circus.
Snow flies around. Snow flies around.
Snow flies around. It's falling on my little hometown.
Falling on my little hometown.
In the house. In the fire.
In the house. In the fire.
Snow flies around. Surrounds my town.
It knocks us down.
It's falling on the circus.
Falling on my little hometown.
Snow flies around. It knocks us down.
Surrounds my town.
It's falling on the circus.
It's falling on my little hometown.
Can't believe I had such a beautiful baby
Can't believe I had such a wonderful Iife
Can't believe I had such a beautiful body
Can't believe I had such power and fear and strife.
I was thinking of you. And I was thinking of you.
And I was thinking of you.
It's a good time far bankers and winners and sailors
With their stories of jackpots and islands of pleasure
They keep their treasures locked in Iron Mountain
Locked in Iron mountain,
They're sailing through this transitory life.
They're moving through this transitory life.
It takes a Iong time far a mouse to realize he's in a
trap
But once he does, something inside him never stops
trembling.
And grandma in the pancake makeup she never wore in
life
Lies there in her shiny black coffin looks just like a
piano.
She made herself a bed inside my ear.
She made herself a bed inside my ear.
And every night I hear
We're sailing through this transitory life.
We're moving through this transitory life.
When the doctor says: congratulations, it's a boy!
Where do aII the dream baby girls, those possible
pearls, go?
Lorrine and Susan with the brown eyes
And lovely Irene and difficult but beautiful Betty
And tiny tiny Juanita?
They're sailing through this transitory life.
They're moving through this transitory life.
Afraid to breathe, afraid to rise
We run and run in this transitory life.
Tipped off balance we fall like Iight
We land on water in this transitory life.
We fall like light on water and water turns to ice.
Everything keeps changing in this transitory life.
In the book there are several chapters about women
talking and women writing. Now it seems likely that men
invented writing and wrote what? Maybe ninety, maybe
ninety-five percent of everything that's ever been
written. Oh there's the recent theory that a woman, the
mysterious 'J', wrote much of the Old Testament, but
only because God was portrayed in this book as
patriarchal, tyrannical and inconsistent, the way
presumably only a woman would write about a man. But I
think I can picture this 'J' scribbling away and
laughing although the first time I saw the Bible re-
enacted was sometime in the 70s and there was a cable
TV show in the Midwest and Bible study groups would act
out parts of the Bible. But these were pretty low
budget productions and shot in a church basement or
somebody's ###160109 and all the prophets had towels
wrapped around their heads for turbans, but you could
see the tags, the ones with the washing instructions,
sort of sticking out and back. There were very few
women on these tapes. They tended to be the odd
shepherdess sort dancing girl bit part.
Then last year I was invited to perform in Israel and I
was very excited because I wanted to see Jerusalem
where this mysterious 'J' had spent her life writing
and working and the Gulf War had made me even more
curious. So I did some asking around, some informal
research, and I talked to an Israeli woman who was
living in New York and she was really having a hard
time living there, and she was always complaining about
American men, and she'd say:
' You know, American men are such wimps, I mean,
they're always talking about their feelings.
And I said:
' They are?
And she said she really liked Israeli men because they
were so tough and because they all had guns and I said:
' Guns, you like guys with guns?
And she said she did and went on about how terrible it
was that Clinton wanted to reduce the army and she was
so animate about this that I started to get kind of
worried. Yeah, I thought, yeah that's true, what are
all these military people going to do when they lose
their jobs? And then I thought, well, hang on, we've
got all these service industries now, things like
psychotherapy, and the military approach to
psychotherapy would really be kind of perfect, really
efficient and fast, you know, listen, you are nothing,
you are a worm, and if you don't get that mother
I walk accompanied by ghosts.
I walk accompanied by ghosts.
My father with his diamond eyes
His voice life size.
He says follow me. Follow me.
And I come sliding where I've been hiding
Out of the heart of a child.
Meet me by the lake. Meet me by the lake.
I'll be there. I'll be there.
If only I had the time. To tell you how I climbed
Out of the darkness. Out of my mind.
And I come sliding where I've been hiding
Out of the heart of a child.
Sunrise comes across the mountains.
Sunrise comes across the day.
Sunsets sit across the lakeside.
Sunsets across the Pyrenees.
Out of the heart of a child.
Out of the heart of a child.
Out of the heart of a child.
Meet me by the lake. Meet me by the lake.
One by one the guests arrive
The guests are coming through
The open-hearted many
The broken-hearted few
And no one knows where the night is going
And no one knows why the wine is flowing
Oh, love I need you, I need you, I need you, I need you
Oh, I need you now
And those who dance, begin to dance
Those who weep begin
And "Welcome, welcome" cries a voice
Let all my guests come in
And no one knows where the night is going
And no one knows why the wine is flowing
Oh, love I need you, I need you, I need you, I need you
Oh, I need you now
And all go stumbling through that house
In lonely secrecy
Saying, "Do reveal yourself"
Or "Why has thou forsaken me?"
And no one knows where the night is going
And no one knows why the wine is flowing
Oh, love I need you,I need you, I need you, I need you
Oh, I need you now
All at once the torches flare
The inner door flies open
One by one they enter there
In every style of passion
And no one knows where the night is going
And no one knows why the wine is flowing
Oh, love I need you, I need you, I need you, I need you
Oh, I need you now
And here they take their sweet repast
While house and grounds dissolve
And one by one the guests are cast
Beyond the garden wall
And no one knows where the night is going
And no one knows why the wine is flowing
Oh, love I need you, I need you I need you, I need you
Oh, I need you now
Those who dance, begin to dance
Those who weep begin
Those who earnestly are lost
Are lost and lost again
And no one knows where the night is going
And no one knows why the wine is flowing
Oh, love I need you, I need you, I need you, I need you
Oh, I need you now
One by one the guests arrive
The guests are coming through
The broken-hearted many
The open-hearted few
And no one knows where the night is going
And no one knows why the wine is flowing
Oh, love I need you, I need you, I need you, I need you
The day, the Devil comes to getcha
You know him by the way he smiles
The day, the Devil comes to getcha
He's a rusty truck with only twenty miles
He's got bad brakes, he's got loose teeth
He's a long way from home
The day, the dDevil comes to getcha
He's got a smile like a scar
He knows the way to your house
He's got the keys to your car
And when he sells you his sportcoat
You say, "Funny! That's my size"
Attention shoppers!
Everybody please rise
Give me back my innocence
Get me a brand new suit
Give me back my innocence
Oh Lord, cut me down to size
Well, you can hide under the porch
And you can hide behind the couch
But the day, the Devil comes to getcha
He's right on time, here he comes
Well, I'm sick of hearin' 'bout your problems
Yeah, girlie your breakin' my heart
I'm the original party animal
Hey hey, Babaloo
So don't come bangin' your Bibles
'Cause you've been laughin' all the way to the bank
And don't give me those crocodile tears
Cause you've been doing it for years I'm everywhere
Sign right here Mr. Jones
The day, the Devil comes to getcha
He's a long way from home
And you know he's gonna getcha
'Cause you're stuck in the middle
Everybody please rise
Give me back my innocence
Get me a brand new suit
Give me back my innocence
Oh Lord, cut me down to size
Give me back my innocence
Get me a new Cadillac
'Cause when I get on up to Heaven Lord
You can have it all back
'Cause in Heaven, you get it all back
In Heaven it all comes back
'Cause in Heaven, you get it all back
In Heaven
'Cause in Heaven
There's a story in an ancient play about birds called The
Birds
And it's a short story from before the world began
From a time when there was no earth, no land.
Only air and birds everywhere
But the thing was there was no place to land.
Because there was no land.
So they just circled around and around.
Because this was before the world began.
And the sound was deafening. Songbirds were everywhere.
Billions and billions and billions of birds.
And one of these birds was a lark and one day her father
died.
And this was a really big problem because what should
they do with the body?
There was no place to put the body because there was no
earth.
And finally the lark had a solution.
She decided to bury her father in the back of her own
head.
And this was the beginning of memory.
Because before this no one could remember a thing.
They were just constantly flying in circles.
Strange perfumes. Long lost rooms.
That blue day came and it stayed aII night
Blue morning. Blue midnight.
The city fell and then you were gone.
What is love but a robin's song?
Ooo these days. These endless blue days.
They're perfect in their own way.
Perfect in their own way.
Ooo those days that come too soon.
Strange perfumes. Long lost rooms.
They're perfect in their own way.
Perfect in their own way.
Where does love go when love is gone?
To what war-torn city?
Ooo those blue days that stayed too long.
What is love but a robin's song?
Ooo these days. These endless blue days.
They're perfect in their own way.
Perfect in their own way.
Where does love go when love is gone?
To what war-torn city?
JOE: In our country, you're free and so you're born and
so they say, "You're free," so happy birthday. And even
if you were born to lose--even if you were a complete
wreck when you were born--you might still grow up to be
president ... because you're free.
GERALDINE: Today, you might be an average citizen ... a
civilian ... a pedestrian ... But tomorrow you might be
elected to some unexpected office--or sell your novel
and suddenly become famous. Or you could get run over
by a truck and your picture could get into the papers
_that_ way. Because you're free and anything might
happen ... so happy birthday.
JOE: Gee! All those lights and all those screens! The
New York Experience is mind-boggling. I don't think
I've ever seen that many screens and I'll probably come
again ... It was really amazing, mind-boggling.
GERALDINE: You're walking and you don't always realize
it but you're always falling at the same time. With
each step you fall forward. Over and over, you're
falling and then catching yourself from falling ... And
this is how you can be walking and falling at the same
time.
JOE: Look! Over there! It's a real dog ... and it's
really talking
GERALDINE: I wanted you and I was looking for you ...
but I couldn't find you. I wanted you and I was looking
for you all day ... but I couldn't find you.
JOE: Well, I paid my money, and I've got this funny
feeling that somehow--you know--it's not what I paid my
money for. I mean I _paid_ my money and I just don't
think this is what I paid my money--you know--what I
paid my money for.
GERALDINE: No one has ever looked at me like this
before ... no one has ever _stared_ at me for so long
like this ... This is the first time anyone has ever
looked at me like this ... stared at me like this for
such a long time ... for so long.
JOE: Well, he didn't know what to do so he just decided
to watch the government and see what the government was
doing and then kind of scale it down to size--and run
his life that way.
GERALDINE: She said the hardest thing to teach her
three-year-old kid was what was alive and what wasn't.
The phone rings and she holds it out to her kid and
says, "It's Grandma. Talk to Grandma." But she's
holding a piece of plastic. And the kid says to
herself: "Wait a minute. Is the phone alive? Is the TV
alive? What about that radio? What is alive in this
room and what doesn't have life?" Unfortunately, she
doesn't know how to ask these questions.
JOE: We were in a large room. Full of people. All
kinds. And they had arrived at the same time. And they
were all free and they were all asking themselves the
same question: What is behind that curtain? They were
all free. And they were all wondering what would happen
next.
GERALDINE: This is the time and this is the record of
I live on the highway near the Puppet Motel.
I log in every day. I know the neighborhood well.
Now about the residents of the Puppet Motel
They're more than a little spooky
And most of them are mean. They're runnin' the numbers
They're playin' cops and robbers
Down in their dungeons inside their machines.
Cause they don't know what's really real now
They're havin' fourth dimensional dreams
Their minds are out on bail now
And real is only what it seems.
And all the puppets in this digital jail
They're runnin' around in a frenzy in search of the
Holy Grail.
They're havin' virtual sex. They're eatin' virtual
food.
No wonder these puppets are always in a lousy mood.
So if you think we live in a modern world
Where everything is clean and swell
Take a walk on the B side of town down by the Puppet
Motel.
Take a whiff. Burning plastic.
I drink a cup of coffee I try to revive
My mind's a blank I'm barely alive
My nerves are shot I feel like hell
Guess it's time to check in at the Puppet Motel.
Boot up. Good afternoon. Pause.
Oooo. I really like the way you talk.
Now only an expert can deal with the problem
Because half the problem is seeing the problem
And only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
So if there's no expert dealing with the problem
It's really actually twice the problem
Cause only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
Now in America we like solutions
We like solutions to problems
And there's so many companies that offer solutions
Companies with names like Pet Solution
The Hair Solution. The Debt Solution. The World
Solution. The Sushi Solution.
Companies with experts ready to solve the problems.
Cause only an expert can see there's a problem
And only an expert can deal with the problem
Only and expert can deal with the problem
Now let's say you're invited to be on Oprah
And you don't have a problem
But you want to go on the show, so you need a problem
So you invent a problem
But if you're not an expert in problems
You're probably not going to invent a very plausible
problem
And so you're probably going to get nailed
You're going to get exposed
You're going to have to bow down and apologize
And beg for the public's forgiveness.
Cause only an expert can see there's a problem
And only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
Now on these shows, the shows that try to solve your
problems
The big question is always "How can I get control?
How can I take control?"
But don't forget this is a question for the regular
viewer
The person who's barely getting by.
The person who's watching shows about people with
problems
The person who's part of the 60% of the U.S. population
1.3 weeks away, 1.3 pay checks away from homelessness.
In other words, a person with problems.
So when experts say, "Let's get to the root of the
problem
Let's take control of the problem
So if you take control of the problem you can solve the
problem."
Now often this doesn't work at all because the
situation is completely out of control.
Cause only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
So who are these experts?
Experts are usually self-appointed people or elected
officials
Or people skilled in sales techniques, trained or self-
taught
To focus on things that might be identified as
problems.
Now sometimes these things are not actually problems.
But the expert is someone who studies the problem
And tries to solve the problem.
The expert is someone who carries malpractice
insurance.
Because often the solution becomes the problem.
Cause only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
Now sometimes experts look for weapons.
And sometimes they look everywhere for weapons.
And sometimes when they don't find any weapons
Sometimes other experts say, "If you haven't found any
weapons
It doesn't mean there are no weapons."
And other experts looking for weapons find things like
cleaning fluids.
And refrigerator rods. And small magnets. And they say,
"These things may look like common objects to you
But in our opinion, they could be weapons.
Or they could be used to make weapons.
Or they could be used to ship weapons.
Or to store weapons."
Cause only an expert can see they might be weapons
And only an expert can see they might be problems.
Cause only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
And sometimes, if it's really really really hot.
And it's July in January.
And there's no more snow and huge waves are wiping out
cities.
And hurricanes are everywhere.
And everyone knows it's a problem.
But if some of the experts say it's no problem
And other experts claim it's no problem
Or explain why it's no problem
Then it's simply not a problem.
But when an expert says it's a problem
And makes a movie and wins an Oscar about the problem
Then all the other experts have to agree that it is
most likely a problem.
Cause only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
And even though a county can invade another country.
And flatten it. And ruin it. And create havoc and civil
war in that other country
If the experts say that it's not a problem
And everyone agrees that they're experts good at seeing
problems
Then invading that country is simply not a problem.
And if a country tortures people
And holds citizens without cause or trial and sets up
military tribunals
This is also not a problem.
Unless there's an expert who says it's the beginning of
a problem.
Cause only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can see there's a problem
And see the problem is half the problem
And only an expert can deal with the problem
Concentration. Empty your mind.
Let the rest of the world go by.
Hold your breath. Hold your breath. Close your eyes.
Rocks and stones. Broken bones.
Everything eventually comes crawling home.
In the night. In the night
Please forgive me if I fall short of your mark.
But there are things still buried in my heart, pause
Heart pause. Heart pause. Then vanish. The vanish.
Unstoppable time. All the things you left behind.
In the night. In the night.
Concentration. Empty your mind.
Let the rest of the world go by.
And when the tears fall from both my eyes
They fall from my right eye because I love you
And they fall from my left eye cause I cannot bear you
Rocks and stones. Broken bones.
Everything eventually comes crawling home.
In the night. In the night.
Comes crawling. In the night. Comes crawling. In the
night.
It was up in Canada and it was August, but very cold. I
had been staying on this Cree Indian reservation for a
few days, just sort of hanging around. One day, some
anthropologists showed up at the reservation. They came
in a little plane with maple leaves painted on the
wings. They said they were there to shoot a documentary
of the Cree Indians. They set up their video equipment
in a tin Quonset hut next to the Hudson Bay Company.
Then they asked the oldest man on the reservation to
come and sing some songs for their documentary. On the
day of the taping, the old man arrived. He was blind
and wearing a red plaid shirt. They turned on some
lights and he started to sing. But he kept starting
over and sweating. Pretty soon it was clear that he
didn't really know any of the songs. He just kept
starting over and sweating and rocking back and forth.
The only words he really seemed sure of were "Hey ah
... hey ah hey ... hey hey hey ah hey ... hey ..."
(Hey ah hey hey hey ah hey) I am singing the songs,
(Hey ah hey ah hey) the old songs ... but I can't
remember the words of the old songs,
(Hey hey hey ah hey) the old hunting songs.
I am singing the songs of my fathers and of the animals
they hunted down.
(Hey hey hey ah hey) I never knew the words of the old
songs.
(Hey hey ah hey hey hey hey ah hey) I never went
hunting.
(Hey hey ah ah hey ah hey) I never sang the songs
(Hey ah hey) of my fathers.
(Hey hey ah hey) I am singing for this movie;
(Hey ah) I am doing this for money.
(Hey hey ah hey) I remember Grandfather; he lay on his
back while he was dying.
(Hey ah hey hey ah hey) I think I am no one.
Maybe if I fall. Maybe if I fall asleep.
There'll be a party there.
Maybe if I fall. Maybe if I fall.
Americans unrooted blow with the wind
But they feel the truth if it touches them.
Maybe if I fall. Maybe if I fall asleep.
There'll be a party there.
Maybe if I fall. Maybe if I fall.
Americans unrooted blow with the wind
But they feel the truth if it touches them.
Maybe if I fall. Maybe if I fall asleep.
The market keeps rising up. The big machines control
the sea and the air
Those big machines, they gotta go somewhere.
So we keep calling em up, calling em, calling em up. No
matter what.
And then those questions come up.
Like was the Constitution written in invisible ink?
Has everybody here forgotten how to think?
Is this great big boat starting to sink?
Pinpoint nukes. Ready to fight. Dressed to kill. Sure
we're right.
Welcome to, welcome to, welcome to the American night.
We just keep calling em up, calling em, calling em up.
We just keep calling em up, calling em, calling em up.
No matter what.
You know Tom Paine wrote the first best-seller at a
dark time in the Revolution when we were losing and all
the soldiers were deserting. Giving up. And the book
was called Common Sense and it was really just a long
list of questions. And one of the questions was: Does
it make common sense for an island to rule a continent?
And everybody kind of went hmmm and they signed back
And today you could ask: Does it make common sense for
a country to rule the world? But no matter what your
answer, no matter what you think, no matter what you
vote for-
We just keep calling em up, calling em, calling em up.
No matter what.
We just keep calling em up, calling em, calling em up.
No matter what.
We keep callin em up, callin em, callin em up.
We keep callin em up, callin em, callin em up.
And you thought there were things that had disappeared
forever.
Things from the Middle Ages.
Beheadings and hangings and people in cages.
And suddenly they were everywhere.
And suddenly they're alright.
We embody the spirit of motion.
We're bodies in motion. We're bodies in motion.
We dig down in the ocean. Swing up to the stars.
We own the moon and the earth. We're masters of Mars.
We're bodies in motion. We embody the spirit of motion.
Our ancestors cowered in caves
Afraid of the dark and the thunder.
Wrapped up in black magic and rage
They were slaves to their hunger.
Now we fly across mountains in planes
We know all about time and big numbers.
We're bodies in motion.
We embody the spirit of motion.
I love you with all my heart You have my devotion.
I loved you from the start. We're bodies in motion.
We embody the spirit of motion.
Ooo the weight of the world. Eternal spin.
Puts a dent in my shoulder.
A burn in my spin. A burn in my spin.
Some say the future is crowds fighting for water and
space.
Chaotic and dark and loud, everything used up and
taken.
But I say the future's within the still point of the
mind.
Where we escape the bounds of earth
And break the bonds of time.
If somebody asked me to design a religion
I would make it all about snow.
No good or evil and no suffering.
Just perfect crystals spinning
In ecstasy ecstasy ecstasy ecstasy.
Ooo the weight of the world. Eternal spin.
Puts a dent in my shoulder.
A burn in my spin. A burn in my spin.
Ooo the weight of the world. Eternal spin.
Puts a dent in my shoulder.
A burn in my spin. A burn in my spin.
We dig down in the ocean. Swing up to the stars.
We own the moon and the earth. We're masters of Mars.
We're bodies in motion. We embody the spirit of motion.
And so finally here we are, at the beginning of a whole
new era.
The start of a brand new world.
And now what?
How do we start?
How do we begin again?
There are some things you can simply look up, such as:
The size of Greenland, the dates of the famous 19th
century rubber wars, Persian adjectives, the
composition of snow.
And other things you just have to guess at.
And then again today's the day and those were the days
and now these are the days and now the clock points
histrionically to noon.
Some new kind of north.
And so which way do we go?
What are days for?
To wake us up, to put between the endless nights.
And by the way, here's my theory of punctuation:
Instead of a period at the end of each sentence, there
should be a tiny clock that shows you how long it took
you to write that sentence.
And another way to look at time is this:
There was an old married couple and they had always
hated each other, never been able to stand the sight of
each other, really.
And when they were in their nineties, they finally got
divorced.
And people said: Why did you wait so long? Why didn't
you do this a whole lot earlier?
And they said: Well, we wanted to wait until the
children died.
Ah, America. And yes that will be America.
A whole new place just waiting to happen.
Broken up parking lots, rotten dumps, speed balls,
accidents and hesitations.
Things left behind. Styrofoam, computer chips.
And Jim and John, oh, they were there.
And Carol, too. Her hair pinned up in that weird
beehive way she loved so much.
And Greg and Phil moving at the pace of summer.
And Uncle Al, who screamed all night in the attic.
Yes, something happened to him in the war they said,
over in France.
And France had become something they never mentioned.
Something dangerous.
Yeah, some were sad to see those days disappear.
The flea markets and their smells, the war.
All the old belongings strewn out on the sidewalks.
Mildewed clothes and old resentments and ragged record
jackets.
And ah, these days. Oh, these days.
What are days for?
To wake us up, to put between the endless nights.
And meanwhile all over town, checks are bouncing and
accounts are being automatically closed.
Passwords are expiring.
And everyone's counting and comparing and predicting.
Will it be the best of times, will it be the worst of
times, or will it just be another one of those times?
Show of hands, please.
And ah, this world, which like Kierkegaard said, can
only be understood when lived backwards.
Which would entail an incredible amount of planning and
confusion.
And then there are those big questions always in the
back of your mind.
Things like: Are those two people over there actually
my real parents?
Should I get a second Prius?
And you, you who can be silent in four languages: Your
silence will be considered your consent.
Oh but those were the days before the audience, and
what the audience wanted, and what the audience said it
wanted.
And you know the reason I really love the stars is that
we cannot hurt them.
We can't burn them or melt them or make them overflow.
We can't flood them or blow them up or turn them out.
But we are reaching for them.
We are reaching for them.
Some say our empire is passing, as all empires do.
And others haven't a clue what time it is or where it
goes or even where the clock is.
And oh, the majesty of dreams.
An unstoppable train. Different colored wonderlands.
Freedom of speech and sex with strangers.
Dear old God: May I call you old?
And may I ask: Who are these people?
Ah, America. We saw it. We tipped it over, and then, we
sold it.
These are the things I whisper softly to my dolls.
Those heartless little thugs dressed in calico kilts
and jaunty hats and their perpetual white toothy
smiles.
And oh, my brothers. And oh, my sisters.
What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They flow and then they flow. They come, they fade,
they go and they go.
No way to know exactly when they start or when their
time is up.
Oh, another day, another dime.
Another day in America.
Another day, another dollar.
Another day in America.
And all my brothers. And all my long lost sisters.
How do we begin again?
I went to a palm reader and the odd thing about the reading was that everything she told me was totally wrong. She said I loved airplanes, that I had been born in Seattle, that my mother's name was Hilary. But she seemed so sure of the information that I began to feel like I'd been walking around with these false documents permanently tattooed to my hands. It was very noisy in the parlor and members of her family kept running in and out. They were speaking a high, clicking kind of language that sounded a lot like Arabic. Books and magazines in Arabic were strewn all over the floor. It suddenly occurred to me that maybe there was a translation problem--that maybe she was reading my hand from right to left instead of left to right.
They say that in 1842 on a plantation in Alabama
The slaves unearthed a huge skeleton,
the bones of a giant whale,
a leviathan,
from the time when all the world was covered with water
from the Andes to the Himalayas
and even Alabama was deep down under.
And the slaves looked at the huge bones and they said:
These must be the bones of a fallen angel
These must be the bones of a fallen angel
Out on the ocean, out of the water
We look for signs of him
He looks like a giant snow hill, a fountain
Then he disappears. He's a speck on the horizon
We see him only in parts
The flash of a tail, his beating heart.
He's in pieces and parts.
It's easier for a camel to slide through the eye of a needle
Than to find a whale who hides at the bottom of the ocean
It's easier to sail around the world in a coffee cup
Than to see a whale when he comes rising up
We see him only in parts
A fountain, fins, a speck on the horizon
Giant teeth, an open mouth
Look out, look out, look out, look out
So hit an elephant with a dart
and he just reaches around and pulls it out with his trunk
But hit a whale in the hear and the whole ocean turns red,
It turns red.
We see him only in parts
The flash of a tail, his beating heart
He's in pieces and parts
So get hit in your head
And there may be a few things you can't recall at all
But you get hit in your heart
And you're in pieces and parts
Last night I saw a host of angels
And they were all singing different songs
And it sounded like a lot of lawnmowers
Mowing down my lawn
And up above kerjillions of stars spangled all over the sky
And they were spirals turning
Turning in the deep blue night.
And suddenly for no reason
The way that angels leave the ground
They left in a kind of vortex
Traveling at the speed of sound.
And just as I started to leave
Just as I turned to go
I saw a man who'd fallen
He was lying on his back in the snow.
Some people walk on water
Some people walk on broken glass
Some just walk round and round in their dreams
Some just keep falling down.
So when you see a man who's broken
Pick him up and carry him
And when you see a woman who's broken
Put her all into your arms
'Cause we don't know where we come from
We don't know what we are.
So when you see a man who's broken
Pick him up and carry him
And when you see a woman who's broken
Put her all into your arms
'Cause we don't know where we come from.
We don't know what we are.
And you?
You're no one
And you?
You're falling
And you?
You're traveling
Traveling at the speed of light.
And you?
You're no one
And you?
You're falling
And you? You're traveling
Last spring,
I spent a week in a convent in the Midwest.
I'd been invited there to do a series of seminars on language.
They'd gotten my name from a list in Washington,
from a brochure that described my work as
"deals with the spiritual issues of our time",
undoubtedly a blurb I had written myself.
Because of this,
and also because men were not allowed to enter the convert,
they asked me to come out.
The night I arrived, they had a party for me in a nearby town,
in a downstairs lounge of a crystal lane's bowling alley.
The alley was reserved for the nuns,
for their Tuesday night tournaments;
it was a pizza party.
And the lounge was decorated to look like a cave:
every surface was covered with that spray-on rock
that's usually used for soundproofing.
In this case,
it had the opposite effect:
it amplified every sound.
Now the nuns were in the middle of their annual tournament playoffs.
And we could hear all the bowling balls
rolling very slowly down the aisles above us,
making the rock blob stalactites tremble and resonate.
Finally the pizza arrived,
and the mother superior began to bless the food.
Now this woman normally had a gruffed, low-pitched speaking voice
but as soon as she began to pray her voice rose,
became pure, bell-like, like a child's.
The prayer went on and on
increasing in volume each time a sister got a strike,
rising in pitch "Dear Father in Heaven"
The next day I was scheduled to begin this seminar on language.
I'd been very struck by this prayer
and I wanted to talk about how women's voices rise in pitch
when they're asking for things,
especially from men.
But it was odd
Every time I set a time for the seminar,
there was some reason to postpone it:
the potatoes had to be dug out,
or a busload of old people would appear out of nowhere
and have to be shown around.
So I never actually did the seminar.
But I spent a lot of time there,
walking around the grounds
and looking at all the crops,
which were all labeled.
And there was also a neatly laid-out cemetery,
hundreds of identical white crosses in rows,
and there were labeled "Maria", "Teresa", "Maria Teresa", "Teresa Maria",
and the only sadder cemetery I saw
was last summer in Switzerland.
And I was dragged there by a Hermann Hesse fanatic,
who had never recovered from reading Sidartha,
and one hot August morning when the sky was quiet,
we made a pilgrimage to the cemetery;
we brought a lot of flowers and we finally found his grave.
It was marked with a huge fur tree and a mammoth stone that said "Hesse"
in huge Helvetica bold letters.
It looked more like a marquee than a tombstone.
And around the corner was this tiny stone for his wife, Nina,
and on it was one word: "Auslander" foreigner.
And this made me so sad and so mad
that I was sorry I'd brought the flowers.
Anyway, I decided to leave the flowers,
along with a mean note,
and it read:
Even though you're not my favorite writer,
by a long shot,
I leave these flowers
It was a large room.
Full of people.
All kinds.
And they had all arrived at the same buidling at more or less the same time.
And they were all free.
And they were all asking themselves the same question:
What is behind that curtain?
You were born.
And so you're free.
One beautiful evening in the garden on Eden
A snake came walking in the twilight
He was leaning on his ivory cane
And he said, let me tell you a little secret about life
There's a certain sharpness to a knife, or a diamond
Come here, Watch it glitter
Oh it's another blue day in a nowhere place
We're singin' hey, hey, nonny, hay
I'm a little teapot short and stout
Tip me over and pour me out
You know when the Egyptians built their steam trains
They didn't have any fuel to burn - no wood, no trees anywhere.
But they did have a lot of old mummy rags lying around
So the gathered up all the rags and burned them in their trains
Yeah, they burned their ancestors for fuel.
Ooo, I'm a crocodile floating down the river
I'm a tree catching my own oranges as they fall from my head
I'm a little teapot short and stout
Tip me over and pour me out
And hello to all the people who sent me on the way
A pat on the back for you. Have fun, it's your moment now
It's your turn to walk along the runway road
And me? I sent my better self on ahead.
Your attention, please
It's like at the end of the play and all the actors come out
And they line up and they look at you...
And horrible things have happened to them during the play
And they stand there while you clap and now what?
What happens next?
And the fire dies and there were furious winds where he went
We're singin' hey, hey, nonny, hey
We're singin' hey, hey, nonny, hey
It's another blue day in a nowhere place
We're singin' hey, hey, nonny, hey
I'm a little teapot short and stout
Tip me over and pour me out
Oh beauty in all it's forms
Funny how hatred can also be a beautiful thing
When it's as sharp as a knife
As hard as a diamond
Sometimes I wish I hadn't gotten that tattoo
Sometimes I wish I'd married you
One hundred fires, one hundred days
Sometimes I feel like a stranger
Sometimes I tell lies (Whoa ho)
Sometimes I act like a monkey
Here comes the night
And then kerjillions of stars start to shine
And icy comets go whizzing by
And everything's shaking with a strange delight
And here it is: the enormous night
And oo my eyes; they're lookin all around
And oo my feet; I'm upside down
If I were the president
If I were Queen for a day
I'd give the ugly people all the money
I'd re-write the Book of Love
I'd make it funny
Wheel of fortune, wheel of fame
Two hundred forty million voices
Two hundred forty million names
And down in the ocean where nobody goes
Some fish are fast Some are slow
Some swim round the world
Some hide below
This is the ocean
So deep, so old.
And then kerjillions of stars start to shine
And icy comets go whizzing by
And everything's shaking with a strange delight
And here it is: the enormous night
And oo my eyes; they're lookin all around
And oo my feet; they've left the ground
So cry me a river that leads to a road
That turns into a highway that goes and goes
And tangles in your memories
You can dance. You can make me laugh. You've got x-ray eyes.
You know how to sing. You're a diplomat. You've got it all.
Everybody loves you.
You can charm the birds out of the sky. But I, I've got one thing.
You always know just what to say. And when to go.
But I've got one thing. You can see in the dark.
But I've got one thing: I loved you better.
Last night I woke up. Saw this angel. He flew in my window.
And he said: Girl, pretty proud of yourself, huh?
And I looked around and said: Who me?
And he said: The higher you fly, the faster you fall. He said:
Send it up. Watch it rise. See it fall. Gravity's rainbow.
Send it up. Watch it rise. See it fall. Gravity's angel.
Why these mountains? Why this sky? This long road. This ugly train.
Well he was an ugly guy. With an ugly face.
An also-ran in the human race.
And even God got sad just looking at him. And at his funeral
all his friends stood around looking sad. But they were really
thinking of all the ham and cheese sandwiches in the next room.
And everybody used to hang around him. And I know why.
They said: There but for the grace of the angels go I.
Why these mountains? Why this sky?
Send it up. Watch it rise. See it fall. Gravity's rainbow.
Send it up. Watch it rise. And fall. Gravity's angel.
Well, we were just laying there.
And this ghost of your other lover walked in.
And stood there. Made of thin air. Full of desire.
Look. Look. Look. You forgot to take your shirt.
And there's your book. And there's your pen, sitting on the table.
Why these mountains? Why this sky? This long road? This empty room?
Standby.
You're on the air.
Buenos noches Senores y Senoras.
Bienvenidos.
La primera pregunta es: Que es mas macho, pineapple o knife?
Well, let's see.
My guess is that a pineapple is more macho than a knife.
Si! Correcto! Pineapple es mas macho que knife.
La segunda pregunta es: Que es mas macho, lightbulb o schoolbus?
Uh, lightbulb?
No! Lo siento, Schoolbus es mas macho que lightbulb.
Gracias. And we'll be back in un momento.
Well I had a dream and in it I went to a little town
And all the girls in town were named Betty.
And they were singing: Doo doo doo doo doo. Doo doo doo doo doo.
Ah desire! It's cold as ice And then it's hot as fire.
Ah desire! First it's red And then it's blue.
And everytime I see an iceberg It reminds me of you.
Doo doo doo doo doo. Doo doo doo doo doo.
Que es mas macho iceberg or volcano?
Get the blanket from the bedroom
We can go walking once again.
Down in the bayou
Where our sweet love first began.
I'm thinking back to when I was a child -
Way back to when I was a tot.
When I was an embryo -
A tiny speck. Just a dot.
When I was a Hershey bar -
In my father's back pocket.
Hey look! Over there!
It's Frank Sinatra Sitting in a chair.
And he's blowing Perfect smoke rings Up into the air.
And he's singing: Smoke makes a staircase for you To descend.
So rare.
Ah desire!
Ah desire!
Ah desire!
So random So rare
And everytime
I see those smoke rings
I think you're there.
Que es mas macho staircase o smoke rings?
Get the blanket from the bedroom
We can go walking once again.
Down in the boondocks
Where our sweet love first began.
Ooo I'm gonna follow you.
Out in the swamps and into town.
Down under the boardwalk
Track you down.
Doo doo doo doo doo. Doo doo doo doo doo.
A while ago, I got a call from the Tesla Institute in Belgrade, long distance. The voice was very faint and it said, “Understand do we that much of your work has been dedicated to Nikola Tesla and do we know the blackout of information about this man in the U.S. of A. And so we would like to invite you to the Institute as a free citizen of the world ... as a free speaker on American Imperialist Blackout of Information . Capitalist resistance to Technological Progress ... the Western World's obstruction of Innovation. So think about it.” He hung up. I thought: Gee, really a chance to speak my mind, and I started doing some research on Tesla, whose life story is actually really sad.
Basically, he was the inventor of AC current, lots of kinds of generators and the Tesla coil. His dream was wireless energy. And he was working on a system in which you could plug appliances directly into the ground. A system which he never really perfected.
Tesla came over from Graz and went to work for Thomas Edison. Edison couldn't stand Tesla for several reasons. One was that Tesla showed up for work every day in formal dress--morning coat, spats, top hat and gloves--and this just wasn't the American Way at the time. Edison also hated Tesla because Tesla invented so many things while wearing these clothes.
Edison did his best to prevent conversion to AC and did everything he could to discredit it. In his later years, Edison was something of a showman and he went around on the Chautauqua circuit in upstate New York giving demonstrations of the evil effects of AC. He always brought a dog with him and he'd get up on stage and say: “Ladies and gentlemen! I will now demonstrate the effects of AC current on this dog!” And he took two bare wires and attached them to the dog's head and the dog was dead in under thirty seconds.
I remember where i came from
There were burning buildings and a fiery red sea
I remember all my lovers
I remember how they held me
World without end remember me.
East. the edge of the world.
West. those who came before me.
When my father died we put him in the ground
When my father died it was like a whole library
Had burned down.
Flying birds. Excellent birds. Watch them fly. There they go.
Falling snow. Excellent snow. Here it comes. Watch it fall.
Long words. Excellent words. I can hear them now.
This is the picture.
I'm sitting by the window. Watching the snow fall. I'm looking out.
And I'm moving. Turning in time. Jump up!
And I can land on my feet. Look out! This is the picture.
This is the picture. This is the picture. This is the picture.
Looking out. I'm watching out. But when I see the future,
I close my eyes. I can see it now.
I see pictures of people rising up. I see pictures of people falling down.
I see pictures of people, they're standing on their heads. They're ready!
I see pictures of people rising up. I see pictures of people falling down.
I see pictures of people, they're standing on their heads. They're ready!
They're looking out. Look out! They're watching out. Watch out!
They're looking out. Look out!
They're watching out. Watching watching out.
I see pictures of people. I see pictures of people.
They're watching. They're watching out. Watch out.
I see pictures of people. They're watching out. They're watching out.
I see pictures of people. Watching. Watch out. They're watching.
It's midnight downtown. It's been raining for days
Rain beats down.
It covers the streets with its sparkling skin.
In the deli purple light
A woman in a party dress pays for some milk
Yellow cab stops for a light
Two men in black hats are running
A messenger on a bike
Pile drivers pounding. They've set up some lights.
They're digging a hole. It's filling up with black water.
Rainy days. Rainy nights.
Steam rises, covers the city.
Pieces of old newspaper float like paper boats
They slide along the rushing water in the gutter.
Rainy days. Rainy nights.
Rain falls down and covers the city
It falls from fabulous heights.
Covers the streets with its sparkling skin.
And over on Jane street they're shooting that movie again
They just can't seem to get it right
Behind a warehouse in a burned out building
A man is sleeping in a cardboard box on a pile of salt
Rainy days. Rainy nights.
Rain falls down and covers the city
It falls from fabulous heights.
Covers the streets with its sparkling skin.
A man on a park bench
Coolsville
Coolsville
Coolsville
Coolsville
So perfect So nice
Hey little darlin,
I'm comin' your way little darlin
And I'll be there
Just as soon as I'm all straightened out
Yeah just as soon as I'm perfect.
Some things are just pictures
They're scenes before your eyes
And don't look now
I'm right behind you
Coolsville
Coolsville
So perfect
So nice So nice!
And down by the ocean under the boardwalk
You were so handsome we didn't talk
You're my ideal
I'm gonna find you
I'm goin to Coolsville
So perfect
So ideal
This train
This city
This train
Some things are just pictures
They're scenes before your eyes
And don't look now
I'm right behind you
Coolsville
She said:
Oh Jesus, why are you always in the arms of somebody else?
He said:
Oh man! I don't need anybody's help I'm gonna get there on my own.
This train
This city
This train
This city
She said: It looks. Don't you think it looks a lot like rain?
He said: Isn't it. Isn't it just. Isn't it just like a woman?
She said: It's hard. It's just hard. It's just kind of hard
to say.
He said: Isn't it. Isn't it just. Isn't it just like a woman?
She said: It goes. That's the way it goes. It goes
that way.
He said: Isn't it. Isn't it just like a woman?
She said: It takes. It takes one. It takes on to. It takes
one to know one.
He said: Isn't it just like a woman?
She said: She said it. She said it to no. She said it to
no one.
Isn't it. Isn't it just? Isn't it just like a woman?
Your eyes. It's a day's work to look in to them.
Your eyes. It's a day's work just to look in to them.
Why does the sun go on shining?
Why does the sea rush to shore?
Don't they know it's the end of the world?
'Cause you don't love me anymore
Why do the birds go on singing?
Why do the stars glow above?
Don't they know it's the end of the world?
It ended when I lost your love
I wake up in the morning and I wonder
Why everything's the same as it was
I can't understand
No I can't understand
How life goes on the way it does
Oh why does my heart go on beating?
Why do these eyes of mine cry?
Don't they know/ it's the end of the world?
It ended when I lost your love
(Instrumental)
(Why does my heart go on beating?
Why do these eyes of mine cry?)
Don't they know it's the end of the world?
In 1980, as part of a project called Word of Mouth, I was invited, along with a living other artists, to go to Panape, a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific. The idea was that we'd sit around talking for a few days and that the conversations would be made into a talking record.
The first night we were all really jet-lagged but as soon as we sat down the organizers set up all these mikes and switched on thousand white light bulbs. And we tried our best to seem as intelligent as possible. Television had just come to Panape a week before we arrived and there was a strong excitement around the island as people crowded around the few sets. Then the day after we arrived, in a bizarre replay of the first TV show ever broadcast to Panape, prisoners escaped from a jail, broke into the radio station and murdered the DJ. Then they went off on a rampage through the jungle, armed with lawnmower blades. In all, four people were murdered in cold blood. Detectives, flown in from Guam to investigate, swarmed everywhere. At night we stayed around in our cottages, listening out into the jungle.
Finally the local chief decided to hold a ceremony for the murder victims. The artist Marina Brownovich and I went, as representatives of our group to film it. The ceremony was held in a large thatched lean-to and most of the ceremony involved cooking beans in pits and brewing a dark drink from roots. The smell was overwhelming. Dogs ###040225 around barking. And everybody seemed to be having a fairly good time... as funerals go.
After a few hours Marina and I were presented to the chief, who was sitting on a raised platform above the pits. We'd been told we couldn't turn our backs on the chief at any time or ever be higher than he was. So we scrambled up onto the platform with our film equipment and sort of duck-waddled up backwards to the chief. As a present I brought one of those Fred Flintstone cameras, the kind where the film canister is also the body of the camera, and I presented it to the chief. He seemed delighted and began to click off pictures. He wasn't advancing the film between shots, but since we were told we shouldn't speak unless spoken to, I wasn't able to inform him that he wasn't going to get twelve pictures, but only one, very, very complicated one.
Last night I dreamed I died and that my life had
been rearranged into some kind of theme park.
And all my friends were walking up and down the boardwalk.
And my dead grandmother was selling
cotton candy out of a little shack.
And there was this big ferris wheel
about half a mile out in the ocean,
half in and half out of water.
And all my old boyfriends were on it.
With their new girlfriends.
And the boys were waving and shouting
and the girls were saying Eeek.
Then they disappeared under the surface of the water
and when they came up again they were laughing
and gasping for breath.
In this dream I'm on a tightrope
and I'm tipping back and forth trying to keep my balance.
And below me are all my relatives
and if I fall I'll crush them.
This long thin line. This song line. This shout.
The only thing that binds me to the turning world below
and all the people and noise and sounds and shouts.
This tightrope made of sound
This long thin line made of my own blood.
Remember me is all I ask.
And if remembered be a task forget me.
Remember me is all I ask.
And if remembered be a task forget me.
This long thin line. This long thin line.
This long thin line. This tightrope.
Remember me is all I ask.
And if remembered be a task forget me.
This long thin line. This long thin line.
I wanted you ... and I was looking for you ... but I couldn't find you ...
I wanted you. And I was looking for you all day. But I couldn't find you. I couldn't find you.
You're walking and you don't always realize it but you're always falling.
With each step, you fall slightly forward and then catch yourself from falling.
Over and over, you're falling and then catching yourself from falling.
Coo coo it's cold outside. Coo coo it's cold outside.
Ooo coo coo. Don't forget your mittens.
Hey Pal! How do I get to town from here?
And he said: Well just take a right where
they're going to build that new shopping mall,
go straight past where they're going to put in the freeway,
take a left at what's going to be the new sports center,
and keep going until you hit the place where
they're thinking of building that drive-in bank.
You can't miss it. And I said: This must be the place.
Ooo coo coo. Golden cities. Golden towns.
Golden cities. Golden towns.
And long cars in long lines and great big signs
and they all say: Hallelujah. Yodellayheehoo.
Every man for himself. Ooo coo coo.
Golden cities. Golden towns. Thanks for the ride.
Big Science. Hallelujah. Big Science. Yodellayheehoo.
You know. I think we should put some mountains here.
Otherwise, what are all the characters going to fall off of?
And what about stairs? Yodellayheehoo. Ooo coo coo.
Here's a man who lives a life of danger.
Everywhere he goes he stays - a stranger.
Howdy stranger. Mind if I smoke? And he said:
Every man, every man for himself.
Every man, every man for himself.
All in favor say aye.
Big Science. Hallelujah. Big Science. Yodellayheehoo.
Hey Professor! Could you turn out the lights?
Let's roll the film.
Big Science. Hallelujah.
Every man, every man for himself.
I wanted you. And I was looking for you.
But I couldn't find you.
I wanted you. And I was looking for you all day.
But I couldn't find you. I couldn't find you.
You're walking. And you don't always realize it,
but you're always falling.
With each step you fall forward slightly.
And then catch yourself from falling.
Over and over, you're falling.
And then catching yourself from falling.
And this is how you can be walking and falling
Let's see. Uh, it was on an island. And there was this snake.
And the snake had legs. And he could walk all around the island.
Yes. That's true. A snake with legs.
And the man and the woman were on the island too.
And they were not very smart.
But they were happy as clams. Yes.
Let's see. Uh... then one evening the snake was walking about
in the garden and he was talking to himself and he saw the woman
and they started to talk. And they became friends.
Very good friends.
And the woman liked the snake very much. Because when he
talked, he make little noises with his tongue, and his long tongue
was lightly licking about his lips.
Like there was a fire inside his mouth and the flame
would come dancing out of his mouth.
And this woman liked this very much.
And after that, she was bored with the man.
Because no matter what happened,
he was always as happy as a clam.
What did the snake say? Yes! What was he saying?
OK. I will tell you.
The snake told her things about the world. He told her about
the time there was a big typhoon on the island
and all the sharks came out of the water. Yes.
They came out of the water and they walked right into your house
with their big white teeth.
And the woman heard these things. And she was in love.
And the man came out and said: We have to go now!
And the woman did not want to go. Because she was a hothead.
Because she was a woman in love.
Anyway, we got into their boat and left the island.
But they never stayed anywhere very long.
Because the woman was restless. She was a hothead.
She was a woman in love.
And this is not a story people tell.
It is something I know myself.
And when I do my job, I am thinking about these things.
Because when I do my job, that is what I think about.
Oooo la la la.
Yeah La La La.
Voici. Voila'.
Here. And there.
Ooo la la la.
Oh yes.
Voici le langage de l'amour.
This is the language of love.
Oooo la la la.
Oooo. Oh yeah.
La la la.
La la.
Voici. Voila'. la la.
Here it is. There it is. La la.
Voici le langage de l'amour.
This is the language of love.
Ah! Comme ci, comme ca.
Ah! Niether here nor there.
Voila. Voila.
There. There.
Voici le langage de l'amour.
This is the language of love.
Voici le langage de l'amour.
This is the language of love.
Attends! Attends! Attends!
Wait! Wait! Wait!
Attends! Attends! Attends!
Wait! Wait! Wait!
Ecoute. Ecoute. Ecoute.
Listen. Listen. Listen.
Ooooo la la la la.
Ooooo. Oh yeah.
Ooo la la la la.
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Voici le langage de l'amour.
This is the language of love.
Voici le langage dans mon coeur.
This is the language of my heart.
Oooo la la.
Oooo. Oh yeah.
Voici le langage de l'amour.
This is the language of love.
Voici le langage dans mon coeur.
This is the language of my heart.
Voici le langage dans mon coeur.
A certain American religious sect has been looking at conditions of the world during the Flood.
According to their calculations, during the Flood the winds, tides and currents were in an overall southeasterly direction.
This would mean that in order for Noah's Ark to have ended up on Mount Ararat, it would have to have started out several thousand miles to the west.
This would then locate pre-Flood civilization in the area of Upstate New York, and the Garden of Eden roughly in New York City.
Now, in order to get from one place to another, something must move.
No one in New York remembers moving, and there are no traces of Biblical history in the Upstate New York area.
So we are led to the only available conclusion in this time warp, and that is that the Ark has simply not left yet.
Let's compare this situation to a familiar occurrence:
You're driving alone at night.
And it's dark and it's raining.
And you took a turn back there
And you're not sure now that it was the right turn,
But you took the turn anyway
And you just keep going in this direction.
Eventually, it starts to get light and you look out and you realize
You have absolutely no idea where you are.
So you get out at the next gas station and you say:
Hello. Excuse me. Can you tell me where I am?
You can read the signs. You've been on this road before. Do you want to go home?
Do you want to go home now?
Hello. Excuse me. Can you tell me where I am?
You can read this sign language. In our country, this is the way we say Hello.
SAY HELLO.
Hello. Excuse me. Can you tell me where I am?
In our country, this is the way we say Hello.
It is a diagram of movement between two people.
It is a sweep on the dial.
In our country, this is also the way we say Goodbye.
Hello. Excuse me. Can you tell me where I am?
In our country, we send pictures of people speaking our sign language in Outer Space.
We are speaking our sign language in these pictures.
Do you think that They will think his arm is permanently attached in this position?
Oh, do you think They will read our signs?
In our country, Goodbye looks just like Hello.
SAY HELLO.
SAY HELLO.
Well I was down at the Zig Zag
That's the Zig Zag Bar & Grill
And everybody was talking at once
And it was getting really shrill.
And I've been around the block
But I don't care I'm on a roll - I'm on a wild ride
'Cause the moon is full and look out baby -
I'm at high tide.
I've got a beautiful red dress
And you'd look really good standing beside it.
I've got some beautiful new red shoes
And they look so fine
I've got a hundred and five fever
And it's high tide.
Well just the other day I won the lottery
I mean lots of money
I got so excited I ran into my place and i said:
HEY! Is anybody home?
Nobody answered but I guess that's not too weird
Since I live alone.
I've got a beautiful red dress
And you'd look really good standing beside it. Girls?
We can take it And if we can't we're gonna fake it
We're gonna save ourselves, save ourselves
We're gonna make it
And if we don't we're gonna take it
We're gonna save ourselves, save ourselves
Well they say women shouldn't be the president
'Cause we go crazy from time to time
Well push my button baby here I come
Yeah look out baby I'm at high tide
I've got a beautiful red dress
And you'd look really good standing beside it.
I've got a little jug of red sangria wine
And we could take little sips from time to time
I've got some bright red drop dead lips
I've got a little red card and mechanical hips
I've got a hundred and five fever!
OK! OK! Hold it!
I just want to say something.
You know, for every dollar a man makes
A woman makes 63 cents.
Now, fifty years ago that was 62 cents.
So, with that kind of luck,
It'll be the year 3, 888
Before we make a buck.
But hey, girls? We can take it
And if we can't we're gonna fake it
We're gonna save ourselves, save ourselves
(Yeah tell it to the judge)
We're gonna make it
And if we don't we're gonna take it
We're gonna save ourselves, save ourselves
We've got a fever of a hundred and five
And look baby It's high tide.
Well I could just go on and on and on...
Now the book is called Stories from the Nerve Bible
and what I mean by the Nerve Bible is the body.
And parts of the body appear and disappear throughout the book,
adding up to a kind of self-portrait
although not a very naturalistic one.
And I used the word Bible in the title of this book
because the first really strange stories I remember hearing
were Bible stories.
And these stories were completely amazing:
about parting oceans, and talking snakes.
And people really seemed to believe these stories.
And I'm talking about adults.
Adults, who mainly just did the most mundane things imaginable:
mowing their lawns and throwing potluck parties;
they all believed in these wild stories.
And they would sit around and discuss them
in the most matter-of-fact way.
So, in a way
I was introduced to a special local form of surrealism at an early age
and so there was always a question in my mind
about what's actually true
and what is just another art form.
Now I've always been interested
in trying to define what makes up the late twentieth century American
for example and so, as an artist,
I've always thought my main job was to be a spy,
to use my eyes and ears,
and find some of the answers.
For example,
I like to hang around the banks of phones in airports,
one of my favorite listening posts
and eavesdrop on conversations.
Now I usually travel on the same schedule as salesmen
and after lunch these guys call into the main office
and I just stand there at the phones, listening in
and taking notes for my portrait of the American salesmen.
{Oh Frank? Listen, Frank.
You know, I hate to say this about Brad.
I mean we both know he's got a heck of a job.
Ya, ya.
Oh you're so right.
But you know, we both know that Brad just isn't pulling his weight.
You know what I mean?
And I'm not saying this just because we're both up for the same Safeway account.}
So this book is really a collection of voices and stories
It was August. Summer of '82.
You had that rusty old car
And me I had nothing better to do.
You picked me up. We hit the road. Baby me and you.
We shot out of town drivin' fast and hard.
Leaving our greasy skid marks in people's back yards.
We were goin' nowhere. Just driving around.
We were goin' in circles. And me I was just hanging on.
Like in that Annie Dillard book
Where she sees that eagle with the skull of a weasel
Hanging from its neck
And here's how it happened, listen.
Eagle bites the weasel. Weasel bites back.
They fly up to nowhere. Weasel keeps hangin' on.
Together forever.
We were goin' nowhere. Just driving around.
You did all the talking and me I didn't make a sound
If I open my mouth now I'll fall to the ground
If I could open my mouth. There's so much I would say.
Like I can never be honest. Like I'm in it for the thrill.
Like I never loved anyone. And I never will.
Eagle bites the weasel. Weasel bites back.
They fly up to nowhere. Weasel keeps hangin' on.
Together forever.
I remember that old coat my grandma used to wear
Made of weasels biting each other's tails
A vicious circle. An endless ride.
On the back of an old woman.
Eagle bites the weasel. Weasel bites back.
They fly up to nowhere. Weasel keeps hangin' on.
Together forever.
And me? I'm goin' in circles. I'm circling around.
You say: Where have you been?
I say: Nowhere
You say: There, you're doing it again
You know I can't keep, I can't keep
I can't keep doing this
I wanted our life to be so sweet
To live on harmony
But there are so many things
You just don't want to hear anymore from me
You know I can't keep doing this, I can't keep,
I can't keep doin' this
Where did it go, the heat?
I can't keep doin' this
I wanted to tell you so many things
But I lost my voice somewhere along the way
I think to myself where did it go?
Maybe it lives somewhere
Outside the city and it's waiting for me there
All I have to do is say the word
And it will come back to me, it will come back to me
But I can't even recall
How to ask something as big as that
You say: What are you thinking now?
I say: Nothing
You say: There, you're doing it again
How did you get to be my conscience?
You know I can't keep, I can't keep
I can't keep doing this
Where did it go, the heat?
Silence can be a beautiful thing
But only when it can by broken by a kind word
With a soft word
With a word
Our love unspoken
Daddy Daddy. It was just like you said
Now that the living outnumber the dead.
Where I come from it's a long thin thread
Across an ocean. Down a river of red.
Now that the living outnumber the dead. I'm one of many.
Daddy Daddy. It was just like you said
Now that the living outnumber the dead.
Speak my language.
Hello. Hello.
Here come the quick. There go the dead.
I got your letter. Thanks a lot.
I've been getting lots of sun. And lots of rest. It's really hot.
Days, I dive by the wreck. Nights, I swim in the blue lagoon.
Always used to wonder who I'd bring to a desert island.
Days, I remember cities. Nights, I dream about a perfect place.
Days, I dive by the wreck. Nights, I swim in the blue lagoon.
Full fathom five thy father lies. Of his bones are coral made.
Those are pearls that were his eyes. Nothing of him that doth fade.
But that suffers a sea change. Into something rich and strange.
And I alone am left to tell the tale.
Call me Ishmael.
I got your letter. Thanks a lot.
I've been getting lots of sun. And lots of rest. It's really hot.
Always used to wonder who I'd bring to a desert island.
Days, I remember rooms. Nights, I swim in the blue lagoon.
I saw a plane today. Flying low over the island.
But my mind was somewhere else.
I was living out in West Hollywood
when a Hollywood strangler was strangling women.
Every night there was a panel discussion on TV about the strangler,
speculations about his habits, his motives, his methods.
One thing was clear about him:
he only strangled women when they were alone, or with other women.
And the panel members would always end the show by saying:
Now for all you women, listen: don't go outside without a man.
Don't walk out to your car, don't even take the garbage out by yourself;
always go with a man.
Then, one of the eyewitnesses
identified a policeman
as one of the suspects.
The next night,
the chief of the police
was on the panel, and he said:
Now for all you women,
whatever happens,
do not stop for a police officer,
stay in your car.
If a police officer tries to stop you,
do not stop,
keep driving and under no circumstances
should you get out of your car.
For a few weeks,
You're out on the ocean
And you get pulled down
Freefall to the bottom
Like when you're drowning
Or falling asleep
You get turned around
And when you think you're
Swimming to the surface
You're swimming straight down.
Down to the bottom.
All the way to the bottom.
Secret codes and cryptograms
I'm lost in your words
I'm swimming.
We're going down to the bottom
All the way to the bottom
Rapture of the deep.
I got your letter.
I couldn't read it.
It was a cryptogram.
Did it sasay take me with you
Or take me as I am?
We're going down to the bottom
All the way to the bottom.
We get turned around.
There is another world
Spinning inside of this one.
I remember where I came from
There were tropical breezes
And a wide open sea
I remember my childhood
I remember being free.
We're going down to the bottom
All the way to the bottom
We get turned around
There is another world
Inside of this one.
Rapture of the deep.
We're going down to the bottom
There is another world
Around 1978, I met the comedian, Andy Kaufmann.
And he was performing this avant-garde Elvis act in a club in Queens.
The performance started with Andy playing the bongos,
and for some unknown reason, sobbing.
We became friends and I acted as Andy's straight man in clubs and field trips.
At the Improv in New York, Andy would begin his show by insulting women and saying,
“I won't respect them until one of them comes up here and wrestles me down."
This was supposed to be my job.
I sat in the club drinking whiskeys trying to get up the nerve.
In the meantime I was also supposed to be heckling him.
And after three whiskeys I managed to get pretty abusive.
Wrestling him down though was really hard because Andy really fought.
On our field trips we would go to Conney Island
to try out some of Andy's theories on cutting-edge comedy.
We'd stand around the “test your strength" games,
the one with the big sledgehammer in the bell,
and Andy would make fun of all the guys who were swinging away.
And I was supposed to beg him for one of the huge stuffed bunnies.
“Oh Andy Honey, please get me a bunny, please, please."
Finally Andy would step up to the big thermometer and take a swing.
The indicator would rise a few inches and “Try again, weakling!" would flash.
At this point Andy would start yelling that the game was rigged and demanding to see the manager.
We also went at the rotowhirl, the ride
that plasters everyone against the walls of a spinning cylinder,
and stretches their bodies into Dopplered blobs.
Before the ride actually starts,
there are a couple of awkward minutes
while the attendant checks the motor and the riders,
bound head and foot, stare at each other.
This was the moment that Andy seized.
He would start by looking around in a panic and then he would start to cry.
“I don't wanna be on this ride, I've changed my mind; we're all gonna die."
The other riders would look around self-consciously.
Should they help? He would then begin to sob uncontrollably.
I loved Andy.
He would come over to my house and read from a novel he was writing;
he would read all night.
And I don't know if any of this book was ever even published.
I have never been one to hope that Elvis is still hanging around somewhere, hiding,
but I will probably always expect to see Andy reappear,
You know those nights,
when you're sleeping,
and it's totally dark,
and absolutely silent,
and you don't dream,
and there's only blackness,
and this is the reason;
it's because on those nights ... you've gone away.
On those nights,
you're in someone else's dream,
you're busy in someone else's dream.
Some things are just pictures,
they're scenes before your eyes.
Don't look now,
Hansel and Gretel are alive and well
And they're living in Berlin
She is a cocktail waitress
He had a part in a Fassbinder film
And they sit around at night now
Drinking schnapps and gin
And she says: Hansel, you're really bringing me down
And he says: Gretel, you can really be a bitch
He says: I've wasted my life on our stupid legend
When my one and only love
Was the wicked witch
She said: what is history?
And he said: history is an angel being blown backwards into the future
He said: history is a pile of debris
And the angel wants to go back and fix things
To repair the things that have been broken
But there is a storm blowing from paradise
And the storm keeps blowing the angel backwards into the future
They say that heaven is like TV
A perfect little world
that doesn't really need you
And everything there
is made of light
And the days keep going by
Here they come Here they come
Here they come.
Well it was one of those days larger than life
When your friends came to dinner
and they stayed the night
And then they cleaned out the refrigerator -
They ate everything in sight
And then they stayed up in the living room
And they cried all night
Strange angels - singing just for me
Old stories - they're haunting me
This is nothing
like I thought it would be.
Well I was out in my four door
with the top down.
And I looked up and there they were:
Millions of tiny teardrops
just sort of hanging there
And I didn't know whether to laugh or cry
And I said to myself:
What next big sky?
Strange angels - singing just for me
Their spare change falls on top of me
Rain falling Falling all over me
All over me
Strange angels - singing just for me
Old Stories - they're haunting me
Big changes are coming
Here they come
Here they come.
You know that little clock, the one on your VCR, the one that's always blinking twelve noon 'cause you never figured out how to get in there and change it? So it's always the same time, just the way it came from the factory. Good morning. Good night. Same time tomorrow. We're in record.
Ooohaaa
Ooohaaa
So here are the questions: is time long or is it wide? And the answers? Sometimes the answers just come in the mail. And one day you get that letter you've been waiting for forever. And everything it says is true. And then in the last line it says: burn this.
Ooohaaa
Ooohaaa
Ooohaaa
And I what I really want to know is: are things getting better or are they getting worse?
Stop, stop. Pause, pause. We're in record.
Because ###180244 stories that we have remembered, and most of them never even get written down. And so when they say things like We're gonna do this by the book, you have to ask What book?, because it would make a big difference if it was Dostoyevsky or just, you know, Ivanhoe.
Ooohaaa
Ooohaaa
I remember where I came from; there were burning buildings and a fiery red sea. I remember all my lovers. I remember how they held me.
Ooohaaa
Ooohaaa
East, East. The edge of the world.
West, West. Those who came before me.
We're in record.
Ooohaaa
Come here little girl. Get into the car. It's a brand new Cadillac. Bright red.
Come here little girl.
Ooohaaa
Ooohaaa
When my father died we put him in the ground.
When my father died it was like a whole library had burned down.
Stop, stop. Pause, pause.
Ooohaaa
Ooohaaa
Same time tomorrow.
And wild beasts shall rest there
And owls shall answer one another there
And the hairy ones shall dance there
And sirens in the temples of pleasure
Speak my language.
And oh it's so beautiful
It's like the Fourth of July
It's lie a Christmas tree
It's like the fireflies on a summer night.
And I wish I could describe this to you better.
But I can't talk very well now
Cause I've got this damned gas mask on.
So I'm just going to stick this microphone out the window
And see if we can hear a little better. Hello California?
What's the weather like out there now?
And I only have one question: Did you ever really love me?
Only when we danced. And it was so beautiful.
It was like the Fourth of July.
O judge
O Mom and Dad
Mom and Dad
O judge
O Mom and Dad
Mom and Dad
Hi. I'm not home right now. But if you want to leave a
message, just start talking at the sound of the tone.
Hello? This is your Mother
Are you there?
Are you coming home?
Hello?
Is anybody home?
Well, you don't know me, but I know you
And I've got a message to give to you
Here come the planes
So you better get ready
Ready to go
You can come as you are, but pay as you go
Pay as you go
And I said: OK. Who is this really? And the voice said:
This is the hand, the hand that takes
This is the hand, the hand that takes
This is the hand, the hand that takes
Here come the planes.
They're American planes
Made in America
Smoking or non-smoking?
And the voice said: Neither snow nor rain nor gloom
of night shall stay these couriers from the swift
completion of their appointed rounds.
'Cause when love is gone
there's always justice
And when justive is gone
there's always force
And when force is gone,
there's always Mom.
Hi Mom!
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms
In your automatic arms.
Your electronic arms.
In your arms.
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms
Your petrochemical arms
Your military arms
I'm lying in the shade of my family tree
I'm a branch that broke off
What will become of me?
Dear Mom, I'm lying here in this queen-sized bed.
I'm thinking back
To all the stories you read to me.
About the little animals who went to sea
In their beautiful pea green boat.
But I can't remember now
What happened then?
Dear Mom, how does it end?
The owl and the pussycat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat.
They took some honey and lots of money
Wrapped in a five pound note.
The owl looked up to the stars above
And sang to a small guitar.
O lovely pussy! Pussy my love!
What a wonderful pussy you are.
Let us be married
Too long we've tarried
But what shall we do for a ring?
What shall we do for a ring?
Hey! Hey!
They sailed away for a year and a day
To the land where the bong tree grows
And there in a wood a piggy wig stood
A ring at the end of his nose
A ring at the end of his nose.
And hand in hand at the edge of the sand
They danced by the light of the
By the light of the, by the light of the moon.
And hand in hand at the edge of the sand
They danced by the light of the
By the light of the, by the light of the moon.
The moon, the moon.
I come very briefly to this place. I watch it move. I watch it shake.
Kumowaku yamano. Watashino sakebi. Watashino koewo.
Ushano kokoku. Watashiwa sokoni. Watashiwa asobu.
Mountain with clouds. A cry. My voice.
Home of the brave. I'm here now. And lost.
They say the dead will rise again. And here they come now.
Strange animals out of the Ice Age. And they stare at you.
Dumbfounded. Like big mistakes. And we say: Keep cool.
Maybe if we pretend this never happened, they'll all just go away.
Watashiwa sokoni. Watashiwa asobu. Mewotoji. Mewotoji.
Kikunowa kotori. Watashino sakebi. Watashino koewo.
I am here in this place. Losing. My eyes are closed. Closed.
Birds are there. Hearing something. Shouting. My voice.
(And yet, we could all be wrong. Wouldn't be the first time.)
Kumowaku yamano. Watashiwa sokoni. Watashiwa asobu.
Kumowaku yamano. Kikunowa kotori. Watashino sakebi.
Mountain with clouds. I am there. Lost.
Mountain with clouds. Birds are there. Hearing something. A shout.
They say the world is smaller now. Small world.
They say that man is taller now. Tall man.
They say the stars are closer now. Thank you, lucky stars.
You come very briefly to this place.
Jikanwa tomaru. Ushano kokoku.
Time is stopped. Home of the brave.
And on a very distant star, slimy creatures scan the skies.
They've got plates for hands. And telescopes for eyes.
And they say: Look! Down there! A haunted planet spinning 'round.
They say: Watch it move. Watch it shake. Watch it turn. And shake.
Watashiwa sokoni. Watashiwa asobu. Kumowaku yamano.
Watashino sakebi. Watashino koewo. Mewotoji. Mewotoji.
I am there. Lost. Mountain with clouds.
A cry. A shout. My eyes are shut. Shut.
And we say: Watch us move. Watch us shake. We're so pretty.
We're so pretty. We say: Watch us move now. Watch us shake.
We're so pretty. Shake our hands. Shake our heads. We shake our feet.
We're so fine. The way we move. The way we shake.
By the shores of Gitche Gumee
By the shining big, sea water
Downward through the evening twilight
In the days that are forgotten
From the land of sky blue waters
And I said: Hello Operator, get me Memphis Tennessee
And she said: I know who you're tryin' to call darlin'
And he's not home he's been away
But you can hear him on the airwaves
He's howlin' at the moon
Yeah this is your country station
And honey this next one's for you.
And all along the highways
And under the big western sky
They're singin' Ooo oooooo
They're singin' Wild Blue.
And way out on the prairie
And up in the high chaparral
They hear a voice it says: Good evening
This is Captain Midnight speaking
And I've got a song for you
Goes somethin' like this:
Starlight Starbright
We're gonna hang some new stars in the heavens tonight.
They're gonna circle by day
They're gonna fly by night
We're goin' sky high. Yoo Hooooo hooo.
Yeah yoo hooo Ooo Hooooooooo
So good night ladies
And good night gentlemen
Keep those cards and letters coming
And please don't call again.
Geronimo and little Nancy
Marilyn and John F. dancing
Uncle took the message
And it's written on the wall.
These are pictures of the houses
Shining in the midnight moonlight
While the King sings Love Me Tender.
And all along the watchtowers
And under the big western sky
They're singing Yoo Hooooo
They're singing Wild Blue.
And way, way up there, bursting in air
Red rockets, bright red glare
From the land of sky blue waters
Sent by freedom's sons and daughters.
We're singing Ooo Hoooooooo
We're singing Wild Blue.
We're singing Ooo Hoooooooo Ooo Hooooooooo
And dark behind it rose the forest
Rose the black and gloomy pine trees
Rose the firs with Cones upon them
And right before it beat the water
Beat the clear and sunny water
