WEIRD LYRICS: VOLUME TWO

Okay, it seems my first edition of Weird Lyrics stumped people, or failed to gain their interest. Either way, I'm soldiering on. Remember, it isn't wise to read too much into it, and a good lyricist (like a good storyteller) can play jokes. Ask them to analyze their own work, and they would most likely snicker and refer you to some
kill-joy who writes for Rolling Stone or The Village Voice. As I have said, there are no right answers; just a bit of merry speculation. I'm not so much into analysis; just free form discussion. And I intend to keep doing this, whether or not anyone but Enormous John Junkill (thanks, Lum) takes the bait. Because I enjoy it, and I hope you do, too. And, really, because I want to share interesting artists with all of you; people you may not have heard about.

The latest entry comes to us from Laurie Anderson. A manga cum laude/Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Barnard college with a degree in art history and an MFA in sculpture from Columbia University, she gained fame as a peformance artist with a flair for various forms of electronic media. Her recorded output gained attention with the unlikely hit "O Superman" and has continued to evolve, within and beyond popular tastes, ever since. Her multi-media extravaganzas and one-woman shows have always drawn rave reviews.

Also an inventor, Anderson patented the Tape Bow Violin and the Talking Stick.

As of 2003, she earned the unique honor of becoming NASA's first Artist in Residence. This is a role she seems, humorously, ill-equipped to define.

Her major theme of exploration is the effect of technology on human beings and how they relate.


THE DREAM BEFORE
by Laurie Anderson

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.
And this storm, this storm
is called
Progress.


So there it is. Weird Lyrics Volume two. Have at it.

Paradise is exactly like where you are right now ... only much, much better.
- Laurie Anderson