"Three Songs For Paper, Film And Video" lyrics - LAURIE ANDERSON
The detective novel is the only novel truly invented in the twentieth century. In the detective novel, the hero is dead at the very beginning. So you don't have to deal with human nature at all. Only the slow accumulation of facts... of data...
In science fiction, the hero just flies in at the very beginning. He can bend steel with his bare hands. He can walk in zero gravity. He can see right through lead doors. But no one asks how he is able to do these things. They just say, "Look! He's walking in zero gravity." So you don't have to deal with human nature at all.
When TV signals are sent out, they don't stop. They keep going. They pick up speed as they leave the solar system. By now, the first TV programs ever made have been traveling for thirty years. They are well beyond our solar system now. All those characters from cowboy serials, variety hours and quiz shows are sailing out. They are the first true voyagers into deep space. And they sail farther and farther our, intact, still talking.
And as we listen with our instruments, as we learn to listen farther and farther into space, we can hear them. We listen farther and that is all we hear. They are jamming our lines. We listen and we hear them talking, traveling, going faster and faster... getting fainter and fainter. And as our instruments become more sophisticated, we can hear them better... speeding away... the sound of speeding away... like a phone continuously ringing.
United States Live (1984)
- Say Hello
- Walk The Dog
- Violin Solo
- Closed Circuits
- For A Large And Changing Room
- Pictures Of It
- Language Of The Future
- Cartoon Song
- Small Voice
- Three Walking Songs
- The Healing Horn
- New Jersey Turnpike
- So Happy Birthday
- English
- Dance Of Electricity
- Three Songs For Paper, Film And Video
- Sax Solo
- Sax Duet
- Born, Never Asked
- From The Air
- Beginning French
- O Superman
- Talkshow
- Frames For The Pictures
- Democratic Way
- Looking For You
- Walking & Falling
- Private Property
- Neon Duet
- Let X=X
- The Mailman's Nightmare
- Difficult Listening Hour
- Language Is A Virus
- Reverb
- If You Can't Talk About It, Point To It
- Violin Walk
- City Song
- Finnish Farmers
- Red Map
- Hey Ah
- Bagpipe Solo
- Steven Weed
- Time And A Half
- Voices On Tape
- Example #22
- Strike
- False Documents
- New York Social Life
- A Curious Phenomenon
- Yankee See
- I Dreamed I Had To Take A Test...
- Running Dogs
- Four, Three, Two, One
- The Big Top
- It Was Up In The Mountains
- Odd Objects
- Dr. Miller
- Big Science
- Big Science Reprise
- Cello Solo
- It Tango
- Blue Lagoon
- Langue D'Amour
- Stiff Neck
- Telephone Song
- Sweaters
- We've Got Four Big Clocks
- Song For Two Jims
- Over The River
- Mach 20
- Rising Sun
- The Visitors
- The Stranger
- Classified
- Going Somewhere?
- Fireworks
- Dog Show
- Lighting Out For The Territories