An Analysis of the lyrics of Amused to death

by: John Izaak Alpert

Roger Waters's "Perfect Sense" from the album, Amused to Death, questions
why we view the world in terms of profit instead of human life. For me it
opened up the question of how we value things. In this paper I will analyse
the lyrics of Amused To Death.

Amused to Death starts starts with the song "The Ballad of Bill Hubbard",
which is a monologue by Alf Razzell. In "The Ballad of Bill Hubbard" Alf
Razzell talks about one of his most haunting experiences in World War I.
His monologue is about how he finds Bill Hubbard wounded in no-man's-land,
and has to leave him behind. This sets the scene for the rest of the album.
The combination of soft melodic music and Alf Razzell's "grandfatherly"
English voice in contrast with the violence of the scene accentuates the
horror of the story. The music also peaks and falls with the drama of Alf
Razzell's monologue. In the beginning of this song the sound of a
television changing channels foreshadows one of the themes of the album,
how television alters our perception of reality. Alf Razzell's monologue is
concluded by the sound of changing channels, and we briefly hear a girl
saying "I don't mind about the war, that's one of the things I like to
watch, if it's a war going on, 'cause then I know if our side's winning, if
our side's losing," before the channel changes again.

The second song "What God Wants, Part I" starts by telling us how the will
of the controllers of the mass media is imposed on the individual. This is
made very clear by the repetition of key lines. The first of these lines
is: "What God wants God Gets" which tells the listener that regardless of
the choice of the individual the outcome will be the same. The second
repeated lyric is: "God wants ..." which is followed by things both
positive, negative. God is impartial, and does not abide by any morals.
This is most obvious at the end of the song: "God wants good/God wants
bad". The line " Don't look so surprised/It's only dogma" shows that it is
not necessary to abide by what God wants, because if you don't, God will
still get what he wants.
"'I'm very upset by religious dogma,' reveals Waters. 'I get angry,
gobsmacked in fact when I hear George Bush saying that God was on their
side during the Gulf war. It's amazing that in 1992, one of the most
powerful men in the world can reduce political rhetoric to that level. But
that's what he has to do, to get votes and maintain power and then use that
power to help the American automobile industry.'"
The line:

" The monkey in the corner/Wrote the lesson in book" refers to how the
monkey (which is used as a metaphor for the human race throughout the
album) accepts the dogma without question. "... which is this idea of a
gorilla who is a metaphor for the human race sitting watching television
and trying to work out what his relationship is with all the other
gorillas..."
Musically the "What God Wants, Part I" contrasts with "The Ballad of Bill
Hubbard" because of it's much heavier sound. The song opened by the sound
of pigs, birds, and what seems to be the roar of a tiger. The song
accentuates the line: "What God Wants God gets God help us all" with a
chorus, sound of a barn door opening, and by what sounds like a sea of
people. This song concludes with the sound of a channel changing.
The third song on the album "Perfect Sense, Part I" tells what got
ancestors started on this destructive path. The song starts off with the
monkey sitting on a pile of stones holding a bone. We aren't told what
happened before the song starts but it must have been important because of
the line: "Turned his back on the garden" which refers to the exit from
Eden in the Bible. "The monkey" however does not, or refuses to learn from
past mistakes. "Memory is a stranger/ History is for fools". The monkey
also uses religion to justify his actions; "And he cleaned his hands/In a
pool of holy writing". An important line is "Man is a tool in the hands/Of
the great God Almighty;" religion absolves man from responsibility for his
actions. The song also points out the futility of the individual's actions
because at the beginning he leaves the garden of Eden, and at the end he
searches for the garden. Musically the song is very mellow, and flows
without pause until "Perfect Sense, Part II"

The forth song "Perfect Sense, Part II" shows how the mass media has
persuaded people into doing what goes against human pleasure and logic. The
most important set of lyrics in this song are:
"Can't you see/ It all makes perfect sense/ Expressed in dollars and cents/
Pounds shillings and pence." If you value things in terms of money
everything makes sense, but the reverse is also true: if you value things
in terms of love, loyalty, and human feelings, nothing makes sense. The
song also points out that television plays a large part in the propaganda
which has a lot of control on how the population reacts. The line "Little
black soul departs in perfect focus/Prime time fodder for the News at Nine"
shows that the media plays on our guilt. The telecast part of the song
expresses the opinions that war has been glamorized to the point that
people view it as a game. The song musically enhances the "Can't you see/
It all makes perfect sense/ Expressed in dollars and cents/ Pounds
shillings and pence" parts of the song by having them sung not only by a
different singer but also by a crowd, much like in "What God Wants".

"The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range" contains similar themes to "Perfect
Sense, Part II". This song focuses on how the media has trained individuals
to accept war by glamorizing it. The line "I looked over Jordan and what
did I see" is a line taken from the song "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" which is
a song about dying. In "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" the river Jordan is the
river which the angels come over to take you to heaven. This is important
because later in the song you find that the singer is looking through a
gunsight over the river Jordan "...through the range finder...". The rest
of the song expresses again that war is treated as a game, as one more form
of entertainment. This is presented in the most obvious ways by the lyrics
"We play the games/With the bravery of being out of range".

"Late Home Tonight, Part I" and "Late Home Tonight, Part II" presents the
view point of the soldier as an individual who does not see the destruction
he wreaks. The soldier is "Secure in the beauty of military life/ There is
no right or wrong". The soldier is so removed from the people he is killing
it doesn't affect him. "No questions only orders and flight flight flight."
The soldier is blameless, and just doing what he's told. The beginning of
the song points out that the wife in Oxfordshire and the wife in Tripoli
are very similar; they are both waiting. The line "And his kind Uncle Sam
feeds ten trillion in/ Change into the total entertainment/ Combat video
game" refers to America where people seem to believe war is not
destructive. They have been desensitized to violence.
"And up here in the stands
The fans are goin' wild
The cheerleaders flip
When you wiggle your hip
And we all like the bit when you take
The jeans from the refrigerator and
Then the bad guy gets hit
And were you struck by the satisfying
Way the swimsuit sticks to her skin
Like BB gun days
When knives pierce autumn leaves
But that's okay see the children bleed
It'll look great on the TV"
Television desensitizes us to violence by confusing violence with sex: "Way
the swimsuit sticks to her skin", and guilt "...see the children bleed".
"...see the children bleed/ It'll look great on TV" looks at death only for
its asthetic value. "Late Home Tonight, Part II" deals with the way in
which the soldier gets treated on his return; he will be treated like a
hero. The line "There's some great pictures coming in" seems to refer to
the "...see the children bleed" in "Late Home Tonight, Part I". People only
appreciate the aesthetic, or entertainment value and not the pain of the
children, or the injustice of their death.

"Too Much Rope" addresses the greed, guilt, and willingness to be satisfied
with life as long as we have "bread and circuses". As well the media plays
on that greed and guilt to keep us passive. The first nine lines of "Too
Much Rope" use images of the gold rush to show the worth of friendship
compared to money. The line "Each man has his price Bob/And yours was
pretty low" uses the clich to show that the integrity of the bond of
friendship can be overcome with money, and that this particular bond didn't
require a lot of money to be overcome. Also note that this could possibly
be a bit of Roger Water's cynical side showing through (Bob Ezrin was the
producer for Pink Floyd, Roger Waters previous band). "History is short the
sun is just a minor star"; the individual's life is insignificant. The
lines "Is that your new Ferrari car/ Nice but I think I'll wait for the
F50" links with the previous lines; matters of life and death surround the
speaker, but he is more concerned with ostentatious wealth. The repeated
line "You don't have to be a Jew/ To disapprove of murder" is ironic, and
much like "Perfect Sense's" "History is for fools", in that the Jews were
murdered in the holocaust, but are now murdering Palestinians.
The lines:
"Tears burn our eyes
Moslem or Christian Mullah or Pope
Preacher or poet who was it wrote
Give any one species too much rope
And they'll fuck it up"
are expressing the view that no religious figure abides by the higher
morals imposed on them by God, but they twist the dogma to suit themselves.
"Give any one species too much rope" refers to having too much luxury and
power. We only require more. "Sees the monsters they made" could refer the
birth defects caused by agent orange in Vietnam, but also suggests the
orders imposed on the soldiers made them into monsters. The line "With the
same soldiers eyes" shows that both soldiers feel the same way about the
war, that they were made monsters by the war. The rest of the song shows
how television is made to be something good: "This tender TV", and that it
causes such profound feelings of sadness by playing on people's guilt.

"What God Wants, Part II" is very similar to "What God Wants, Part I" in
that it portrays what God wants as not only good but bad as well. The song
starts with the sound of a television evangelist preaching the word of god.
"Do you believe in a better day
Do you have faith in a golden way
If you do then we must come together this day
Come together as one united
Television audience
Brought together by the sound of my voice
United united financially united socially
United spiritually and all possible ways
Through the power of money
And the power of prayers"
The evangelist in this song has replaced the church with the "Television
audience". "Through the power of money" seems to suggest that God is money,
because the word money replaces God, or faith. This also seems to say that
although the evangelist twists the meaning of God's words for his own
personal gain, his words are the words of God. The lyrics "God don't want
small potatoes" and "God wants small towns" seem to clash. However this
fits in very well because god not only wants large amounts of money, but
small towns which are associated with rednecks and rightwing conservative
people. Later in the song the line "God wants his secret/ Never to be told"
links well with "God wants to cover himself", because both lyrics say that
God has fears that the people will find that his motives are not so pure.

"What God Wants, Part III" expresses a hope that the human species will
escape the influence of the media. The song still says our world is
consumed by money through lines like:
"And in banks across the world
Christians Moslems Hindus Jews
And people of every
Race creed colour tint or hue
Get down on their knees and pray".
Towards the end of the song while the television is pumping out propaganda
as in:

"And the bullets fly
And the rivers run dry
And the fat girls sigh
And the network anchor persons lie
And the soldier's alone
In the video zone",
the line "But the monkey's not watching" seems to express a hope that the
monkey, a metaphor for the human species, will overcome the influence of
mass media which is TV.

In all three "What God Wants" songs an alien tells animals "don't look so
suprised"; as if the message is obvious. Following this two animal
embodyments of either religon, laughing, or thievery do what they are told.
The last animal, a monkey, writes in his book as if he's not learning
anything only absorbing the alien's words.

"Watching TV" shows that although the television uses asthetics to
manipulate, and manipulate us through our guilt, and our greed, there are a
lot of real messages underlying the propaganda. The song also has the very
cynical view that although television makes us feel pity, we don't do
anything to change the world. The song is about the Tiananmen Square
killings, and how the death of one appealing woman on television made that
event meaningful for watchers.
"She had shiny hair
She had perfect breasts
She had high hopes
She had almond eyes
She had yellow thighs"
exemplifies that her significance for the viewer is her beauty. The line
"So get out your pistols/ Get out your stones/.../Cut them to the bone"
expresses that now that the crime has been witnessed, we have to fight. The
rest of the song makes her an individual. She's important because she died
on television and therefore can reach many more people. This is very
cynical because none of the ugly dead are mentioned. This comes through
powerfully. The lines:
"They are the lackeys of the grocer's machine
They built the dark satanic mills
That manufacture hell on earth
They bought the front row seats on Calvary
They are irrelevant to me
But I grieve for my sister",
Although there are very real feelings towards this woman's oppressors the
viewer is not going to do anything about them, except grieve for the dead
woman. This also comes through in the lines: "Did we do anything after
this/ I've a feeling we did/ We were watching TV". Finally at the end of
the song the singer admits that he will only grieve for his sister, and
that indeed "She's symbolic of our failure" to do anything.

In "Three Wishes" the man receiving three wishes realizes too late that he
wants another wish but he's used them all up. The last wish in this case is
for love.

The song "It's A Miracle" shows that we have got what God wants now: empty
entertainment. The line "We've got famine when we need it" suggests that
somebody needs famine. The line in the song "We've got choice" suggests in
our luxury we have a choice of which car to drive, and that choice is more
important than the famine in other countries. The biblical reference: "She
said meet me/ In the Garden of Gethsemene my dear" implies that we are
betraying ourselves, much like Jesus was betrayed in Gethsemene.

Near the end of the song we hear,

"Lloyd-Webber's awful stuff
Runs for years and years and years
An earthquake hits the theatre
But the operetta lingers
Then the piano lid comes down
And breaks his fucking fingers
It's a miracle."
Waters hates Lloyd-Webber's music, and he uses Webber's material as a prime
example of empty entertainment.

In "Amused To Death" Roger Waters points out that too much entertainment
can kill the human spirit. The second line of the song "This supermarket
life is getting long" expresses much the same way as "It's A Miracle" that
this life is empty; there is no meaning, only entertainment. In the lines
"What is the heart life of a colour TV/ What is the shelf life of a teenage
queen" the types of life are deliberately reversed implying television is
as valuable as human beings. It also links with "Too Much Rope" where the
"tender TV" means that the television not only delivers the feeling but
possesses some feeling itself. Later in the song the line:

"The little ones sit by their TV screens
No thoughts to think
No tears to cry
All sucked dry
Down to the very last breath"
shows television sucks meaning from human life, people are satisfied by
consumption but not nourished by it. "We did as we were told/ We bought and
sold/ It was the greatest show on earth". The end of the song is about how
an alien will find our remains, "And when they found our shadows", which is
much like the deaths in Hiroshima in that shadows of the victims were left.

The final monologue of Amused To Death is a message of hope. In the
monologue Alf Razzell tell of how the haunting experience which he'd had
before is now resolved. This suggests that we can help ourselves by
reaching out to one another instead of letting the human spirit die. It
also shows that people still have real feelings, not just empty desire to
be amused.

"what struck me about Alf Razzell was the extraordinary humanity of his
story in that he had been living with his concern, having left his friend
in no-mans-land 74 years before and that he carried this kind of burden
with him and I guess it struck me that we help each other little to sort
out those burdens that each of us individually has."

Waters, Roger. Amused To Death. Sony, CK 47127, 1992

Douglas, J. D. The New Bible Dictionary. Michigan.1962

Pitwood, Martin (1992 September). Interview from Rock Compact Disc
magazine, Available FTP: ftp.halcyon.com Directory
/local/pink_floyd/articles File: Roger.sept92

(1993 February). Rockline Interview, Available FTP: ftp.halcyon.com
Directory /local/pink_floyd/interviews File: Roger.RLI93

(1988 September). Penthouse Magazine. Available FTP: ftp.halcyon.com
Directory /local/pink_floyd/articles File: Roger.P88

Schuetz, David.(1995 January) Pink Floyd Internet Reference List (FAQ).
Available: [email protected] File: echoes.faq.3.4
Denault, Matt. (1995 February) Pink Floyd MiniFAQ. Available:
alt.music.pink-floyd File: MiniFAQ
Appendix

ROGER WATERS - AMUSED TO DEATH

The Ballad Of Bill Hubbard

Instrumental
crickets
(switch channels)
[Alf Razzell:]
"Two things that have haunted me most are the days when I
had to collect the paybooks; and when I left Bill Hubbard in
no-man's-land.

"I was picked up and taken into their trench. And I'd no
sooner taken two or three steps down the trench when I heard a
call, 'Hello Razz, I'm glad to see you. This is my second night
here,' and he said 'I'm feeling bad,' and it was Bill Hubbard,
one of the men we'd trained in England, one of the original
battalion. I had a look at his wound, rolled him over; I could
see it was probably a fatal wound. You could imagine what pain
he was in, he was dripping with sweat; and after I'd gone about
three shellholes, traversed that, had it been...had there been a
path or a road I could have done better. He pummelled me, 'Put
me down, put me down, I'd rather die, I'd rather die, put me
down.' I was hoping he would faint. He said 'I can't go any
further, let me die.' I said 'If I leave you here Bill you won't
be found, let's have another go.' He said 'All right then.' And
the same thing happened; he couldn't stand it any more, and I had
to leave him there, in no-man's-land."

(switch channels)
(girl) "I don't mind about the war, that's one of the things I
_like_ to watch, if it's a war going on, 'cause then I know if
our side's winning, if our side's losing..."
(switch channels)

What God Wants, Part I

What God wants God gets God help us all
What God wants God gets
The kid in the corner looked at the priest
And fingered his pale blue Japanese guitar
The priest said
God wants goodness
God wants light
God wants mayhem
God wants a clean fight
What God wants God gets
Don't look so surprised
It's only dogma
The alien prophet cried
The beetle and the springbok
Took the Bible from its hook
The monkey in the corner
Wrote the lesson in his book
What God wants God gets God help us all
God wants peace
God wants war
God wants famine
God wants chain stores
What God wants God gets
God wants sedition
God wants sex
God wants freedom
God wants semtex
What God wants God gets
Don't look so surprised
I'm only joking
The alien comic cried
The jackass and hyena
Took the feather from its hook
The monkey in the corner
Wrote the joke down in his book
What God wants God gets
God wants boarders
God wants crack
God wants rainfall
God wants wetbacks
What God wants God gets
God wants voodoo
God wants shrines
God wants law
God wants organised crime
God wants crusade
God wants jihad
God wants good
God wants bad
What God wants God gets

Perfect Sense, Part I

The monkey sat on a pile of stones
And stared at the broken bone in his hand
And the stains of a Viennese quartet
Rang out across the land
The monkey looked up at the stars
And thought to himself
Memory is a stranger
History is for fools
And he cleaned his hands
In a pool of holy writing
Turned his back on the garden
And set out for the nearest town
Hold on hold on soldier
When you add it all up
The tears and the marrowbone
There's an ounce of gold
And an ounce of pride in each ledger
And the Germans killed the Jews
And the Jews killed the Arabs
And the Arabs killed the hostages
And that is the news
And is it any wonder
That the monkey's confused
He said Mama Mama
The President's a fool
Why do I have to keep reading
These technical manuals
And the joint chiefs of staff
And the brokers on Wall Street said
Don't make us laugh
You're a smart kid
Time is linear
Memory is a stranger
History is for fools
Man is a tool in the hands
Of the great God Almighty
And they gave him command
Of a nuclear submarine
And sent him back in search of
The Garden of Eden

Perfect Sense, Part II

Can't you see
It all makes perfect sense
Expressed in dollars and cents
Pounds shillings and pence
Can't you see
It all makes perfect sense
Little black soul departs in perfect focus
Prime time fodder for the News at Nine
Darling is the child warm in the bed tonight
Hi everybody I'm Marv Albert
And welcome to our telecast
Coming to you live from Memorial Stadium
It's a beautiful day
And today we expect a sensational matchup
But first our global anthem
Can't you see
It all makes perfect sense
Expressed in dollars and cents
Pounds shillings and pence
Can't you see
It all makes perfect sense
And here come the players
As I speak to you now the captain
Has his cross hairs zeroed in on the oil rig
It looks to me like he's going to attack
By the way did you know that a submarine
Captain earns 200,000 dollars a year
Oh that's less tax Marv yeah less tax
Uh thank you Emery you're welcome
Now back to the game he fires one yes
There goes two both fish are running
The rig is going into a prevent defense
Will they make it I don't think so
Can't you see
It all makes perfect sense
Expressed in dollars and cents
Pounds shillings and pence
Can't you see
It all makes perfect sense

The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range

You have a natural tendency
To squeeze off a shot
You're good fun at parties
You wear the right masks
You're old but you still
Like a laugh in the locker room
You can't abide change
You're at home on the range
You opened your suitcase
Behind the old workings
To show off the magnum
You deafened the canyon
A comfort a friend
Only upstaged in the end
By the Uzi machine gun
Does the recoil remind you
Remind you of sex
Old man what the hell you gonna kill next
Old timer who you gonna kill next
I looked over Jordan and what did I see
Saw a U.S. Marine in a pile of debris
I swam in your pools
And lay under your palm trees
I looked in the eyes of the Indian
Who lay on the Federal Building steps
And through the range finder over the hill
I saw the front line boys popping their pills
Sick of the mess they find
On their desert stage
And the bravery of being out of range
Yeah the question is vexed
Old man what the hell you gonna kill next
Old timer who you gonna kill next
Hey bartender over here
Two more shots
And two more beers
Sir turn up the TV sound
The war has started on the ground
Just love those laser guided bombs
They're really great
For righting wrongs
You hit the target
And win the game
From bars 3,000 miles away
3,000 miles away
We play the game
With the bravery of being out of range
We zap and maim
With the bravery of being out of range
We strafe the train
With the bravery of being out of range
We gain terrain
With the bravery of being out of range
With the bravery of being out of range
We play the game
With the bravery of being out of range

Late Home Tonight, Part I

Standing at the window
A farmer's wife in Oxfordshire
Glances at the clock it's nearly time for tea
She doesn't see
The phantom in the hedgerow dip its wings
Doesn't hear the engine sing
But in the cockpit's techno glow
Behind the Ray Ban(R) shine
The kid from Cleveland
In the comfort of routine
Scans his dials and smiles
Secure in the beauty of military life
There is no right or wrong
Only tin cans and cordite and white cliffs
And blue skies and flight flight flight
The beauty of military life
No questions only orders and flight only flight
What a beautiful sight in his wild blue dream
The eternal child leafs through his
War magazine
And his kind Uncle Sam feeds ten trillion in
Change into the total entertainment
Combat video game
And up here in the stands
The fans are goin' wild
The cheerleaders flip
When you wiggle your hip
And we all like the bit when you take
The jeans from the refrigerator and
Then the bad guy gets hit
And were you struck by the satisfying
Way the swimsuit sticks to her skin
Like BB gun days
When knives pierce autumn leaves
But that's okay see the children bleed
It'll look great on the TV
And in Tripoli another ordinary wife
Stares at the dripping her old man hadn't
Time to fix
Too busy mixing politics and rhythm
In the street below

Late Home Tonight, Part II

Hark the wire service sing
Clear the satellite link
Check the fax machine
Hold the lead story boys
There's some great pictures coming in
Now the pilot's heartbeat slows
Palms dry out
No questions only orders
And the F-1 glides in nose-up
Through the cloudbase and the
Ground crew cheers as he puts down
His landing gear
Hey boy you're a hero take this cigar
Back home in Cleveland
All the papers and local TV stations
Will be calling your ma
And the farmer's wife
Shoos the cat off the chair
She says sit down my dear
Was the milking all right
Our American friends are late home tonight

Too Much Rope

When the sleigh is heavy
And the timber wolves are getting bold
You look at you companions
And test the water of their friendship
With your toe
They significantly edge
Closer to the gold
Each man has his price Bob
And yours was pretty low
History is short the sun is just a minor star
The poor man sells his kidneys
In some colonial bazaar
Que sera sera
Is that your new Ferrari car
Nice but I think I'll wait for the F50
You don't have to be a Jew
To disapprove of murder
Tears burn our eyes
Moslem or Christian Mullah or Pope
Preacher or poet who was it wrote
Give any one species too much rope
And they'll fuck it up
And last night on TV
A Vietnam vet
Takes his beard and his pain
And his alienation twenty years
Back to Asia again
Sees the monsters they made
In formaldehyde floating 'round
Meets a gook on a bike
A good little tyke
A nice enough guy
With the same soldier's eyes
Tears burn my eyes
What does it mean
This tearjerking scene
Beamed into my home
That it moves me so much
Why all the fuss
It's only two humans being
It's only two humans being
Tears burn my eyes
What does it mean
This tender TV
This tearjerking scene
Beamed into my home
You don't have to be a Jew
To disapprove of murder
Tears burn in our eyes
Moslem or Christian Mullah or Pope
Preacher or poet who was it wrote
Give any one species too much rope
And they'll fuck it up

What God Wants, Part II

Do you believe in a better day
Do you have faith in a golden way
If you do then we must come together this day
Come together as one united
Television audience
Brought together by the sound of my voice
United united financially united socially
United spiritually and all possible ways
Through the power of money
And the power of prayers
What God wants God gets God help us all
God wants dollars
God wants cents
God wants pounds shillings and pence
God wants guilders
God wants Kroner
God wants Swiss francs
God wants French francs
Oui il veut des francs francais
God wants escudos
God wants pesetas
Don't send lira
God don't want small potatoes
God wants small towns
God wants pain
God wants clean up rock campaigns
God wants windows
God wants solutions
God wants TV
God wants contributions
What God wants God gets God help us all
God wants silver
God wants gold
God wants his secret
Never to be told
God wants gigolos
God wants giraffes
God wants politics
God wants a good laugh
What God wants God gets God help us all
God wants friendship
God wants fame
God wants credit
God wants blame
God wants poverty
God wants wealth
God wants insurance
God wants to cover himself
What God wants God gets God help us all

What God Wants, Part III

Don't be afraid it's only business
The alien prophet sighed
The vulture and the magpie took
The cash box from its hook
The monkey in the corner wrote
The figures in his book
Crazed the checkout lady's fingers
Flash across the till
The captain posts
The menu for the day
And in banks across the world
Christians Moslems Hindus Jews
And people of every
Race creed colour tint or hue
Get down on their knees and pray
The raccoon and the groundhog
Neatly make up bags of change
But the monkey in the corner
Well he's slowly drifting out of range
Christ it's freezing inside
The veteran cries
The hyenas break cover
And stream through the meadow
And the fog rolls in
Though his bottle of gin
So he picks up a stone
That looks like a bone
And the bullets fly
And the rivers run dry
And the fat girls sigh
And the network anchor persons lie
And the soldier's alone
In the video zone
But the monkey's not watching
He's slipped out to the kitchen
To pile the dishes
And answer the phone

Watching TV

We were been watching
In Tiananmen Square
Lost my baby there
My yellow rose
In her bloodstained clothes
She was a short order pastry chef
In a Dim Sum dive on the Yangtze tideway
She had shiny hair
She was the daughter of an engineer
Won't you shed a tear
For my yellow rose
My yellow rose
In her bloodstained clothes
She had perfect breasts
She had high hopes
She had almond eyes
She had yellow thighs
She was a student of philosophy
Won't you grieve with me
For my yellow rose
Shed a tear
For her bloodstained clothes
She had shiny hair
She had perfect breasts
She had high hopes
She had almond eyes
She had yellow thighs
She was the daughter of an engineer
So get out your pistols
Get out your stones
Get out your knives
Cut them to the bone
They are the lackeys of the grocer's machine
They built the dark satanic mills
That manufacture hell on earth
They bought the front row seats on Calvary
They are irrelevant to me
But I grieve for my sister
People of China
Do not forget do not forget
The children who died for you
Long live the Republic
Did we do anything after this
I've a feeling we did
We were watching TV
Watching TV
We were watching TV
Watching TV
She wore a white bandanna that said
Freedom now
She thought the Great Wall of China
Would come tumbling down
She was a student
Her father was an engineer
Won't you shed a tear
For my yellow rose
My yellow rose
In her bloodstained clothes
Her grandpa fought old Chiang Kai-shek
That no-good low-down dirty rat
Who used to order his troops
To fire on the women and children
Imagine that imagine that
And in the spring of '48
Mao Tse-tung got quite irate
And he kicked that old dictator Chiang
Out of the state of China
Chiang Kai-shek came down in Formosa
And they armed the island of Quemoy
And the shells were flying across the China Sea
And they turned Formosa into a shoe factory
Called Taiwan
And she is different from Cro-Magnon man
She's different from Anne Boleyn
She is different from the Rosenbergs
And from the unknown Jew
She is different from the unknown Nicaraguan
Half superstar half victim
She's a victor star conceptually new
And she is different from the Dodo
And from the Kankanbono
She is different from the Aztec
And from the Cherokee
She's everybody's sister
She's symbolic of our failure
She's the one in fifty million
Who can help us to be free
Because she died on TV
And I grieve for my sister

Three Wishes

Reached back for the bottle
And rubbed against the lamp
Genie came out smiling
Like some Eastern tramp
He said hey boy what's happening
What is going on
You can have three wishes
If you don't take too long
I said well
I wish they were all happy in the Lebanon
Wish somebody'd help me write this song
I wish when I was young
My old man had not been gone
Genie said consider it done
There's something in the air
And you don't know what it is
You see someone through the window
Who you've just learned to miss
And the road leads on to glory but
You've used up your last wish
Your last wish
And you want her to come home
Genie said I'm sorry
But that's the way it goes
Where the hell's the lamp sucker
It's time for me to go
Bye
There's something in the air
And you don't know what it is
You see someone through the window
Who you've just learned to miss
And the road leads on to glory but
You've used up your last wish
Your last wish
And you want her to come home

It's A Miracle

Miraculous you call it babe
You ain't seen nothing yet
They've got Pepsi in the Andes
McDonalds in Tibet
Yosemite's been turned into
A golf course for the Japs
The Dead Sea is alive with rap
Between the Tigris and Euphrates
There's a leisure centre now
They've got all kinds of sports
They've got Bermuda shorts
They had sex in Pennsylvania
A Brazilian grew a tree
A doctor in Manhattan
Saved a dying man for free
It's a miracle
Another Miracle
By the grace of God Almighty
And the pressures of the marketplace
The human race has civilized itself
It's a miracle
We've got warehouses of butter
We've got oceans of wine
We've got famine when we need it
Got designer crime
We've got Mercedes
We've got Porsche
Ferrari and Rolls Royce
We've got choice
She said meet me
In the Garden of Gethsemene my dear
The Lord said Peter I can see
Your house from here
An honest family man
Finally reaped what he had sown
A farmer in Ohio has just repaid a loan
It's a miracle
By the grace of God Almighty
And the pressures of the marketplace
The human race has civilized itself
It's a miracle
We cower in our shelters
With our hands over our ears
Lloyd-Webber's awful stuff
Runs for years and years and years
An earthquake hits the theatre
But the operetta lingers
Then the piano lid comes down
And breaks his fucking fingers
It's a miracle

Amused To Death

Doctor Doctor what is wrong with me
This supermarket life is getting long
What is the heart life of a colour TV
What is the shelf life of a teenage queen
Ooh western woman
Ooh western girl
News hound sniffs the air
When Jessica Hahn goes down
He latches on to that symbol
Of detachment
Attracted by the peeling away of feeling
The celebrity of the abused shell the belle
Ooh western woman
Ooh western girl
And the children of Melrose
Strut their stuff
Is absolute zero cold enough
And out in the valley warm and clean
The little ones sit by their TV screens
No thoughts to think
No tears to cry
All sucked dry
Down to the very last breath
Bartender what is wrong with me
Why am I so out of breath
The captain said excuse me ma'am
This species has amused itself to death
Amused itself to death
Amused itself to death
We watched the tragedy unfold
We did as we were told
We bought and sold
It was the greatest show on earth
But then it was over
We ohhed and aahed
We drove our racing cars
We ate our last few jars of caviar
And somewhere out there in the stars
A keen-eyed look-out
Spied a flickering light
Our last hurrah
And when they found our shadows
Grouped around the TV sets
They ran down every lead
They repeated every test
They checked out all the data on their lists
And then the alien anthropologists
Admitted they were still perplexed
But on eliminating every other reason
For our sad demise
They logged the explanation left
This species has amused itself to death
No tears to cry no feelings left
This species has amused itself to death

(switch channels)
[Alf Razzell:]
"Years later, I saw Bill Hubbard's name on the memorial to the
missing at Aras[?]. And I...when I saw his name I was absolutely
transfixed; it was as though he was now a human being instead of
some sort of nightmarish memory of how I had to leave him, all
those years ago. And I felt relieved, and ever since then I've
felt happier about it, because always before, whenever I thought
of him, I said to myself, 'Was there something else that I could
have done?' [background: "I'd rather die, I'd rather die..."]
And that always sort of worried me. And having seen him, and his
name in the register - as you know in the memorials there's a
little safe, there's a register in there with every name - and
seeing his name and his name on the memorial; it sort of
lightened my...heart, if you like."
(woman) "When was it that you saw his name on the memorial?"
"Ah, when I was eighty-seven, that would be a year,
ninete...eighty-four, nineteen eighty-four."
(switch channels)
crickets