Home of the Brave

Words and Music by Laurie Anderson @Difficult Music BMI (c)1986 Warner

Bros. Records

Tracks:

Smoke Rings

White Lily

Late Show

Talk Normal

Language Is A Virus

Radar

Sharkey's Night

Credit Racket

#

Smoke Rings

# Standby. You're on the air.

# Buenos noches Senores y Senoras. Bienvenidos.

# La primera pregunta es: Que es mas macho,

# pineapple o knife?

As a language teacher, 'Smoke Rings' strikes a chord with me. Que es mas macho?' Classroom language tends to be artificial, and despite the recent trends towards stressing so-called 'authentic' language and 'communicative' teaching ('OK. Buzzwords only..') a lot of classroom interaction resembles the situation in the song. Also I teach English speakers French, and beginners find it difficult to come to terms with the idea that some things are 'masculine' and some things are 'feminine'. This is natural for French and Spanish, but my classes always find it bizarre and unsettling that 'beard' is feminine (la barbe) and 'breast' is masculine (le sein) The men are especially disconcerted that 'beer' is feminine (la biere)! There is the imagery of dream here: inanimate objects taking on what, in English, are the attributes of people. And later on in the song she thinks back to when she was a 'Hershey bar in my father's back pocket'. The Hershey bar (an inanimate object) becomes her. Also the 'back pocket' is another womb symbol - only this time the masculine/feminine thing is in play: it's the *father's* back pocket. One could almost put the question: que es mas macho, back pocket o womb? :-) geraint@mailserver.business.co.uk

My personal spin on "Love is like a Hershey bar, in my father's back pocket" had more to do with the WWII cliche ... that GIs would offer Hershey bars (and nylons) to women in order to make them more amenable to providing sexual favors ... making it a cynical observation on the meaning of love.
'Wolf
(slvrwolf@netaxs.com)

Particularly because Laurie is "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"--leading us to the point of conception. Jim Showalter

The lyric actually doesn't mention the word "love." JimDavies

# 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.

Was this an Saturday Night Live skit? A friend told me that it was. JimDavies

Yes, the opening of this song is a humorous exaggeration of a Saturday Night Live sketch. In the original sketch, the questions compared celebrities instead of inanimate objects, and the contestants were illegal aliens, thus the Spanish.Brian Raiter brianr@connectsoft.com

# Well I had a dream and in it

# I went to a little town

# And all the girls in town were named

# Betty.

Why is this so funny? It everyone has the same name, you'd think there would be some kind of significance to it. Yet the name is common and meaningless, and has, for some, silly connotations. JimDavies

Have you had the experience of suddenly realizing that a name has become extraordinarily popular among parents for no apparent reason? I remember at school that there was a sudden spate of 'Benjamin's two or three years beneath me. Not long ago I noticed that there were an awful lot of teenage boys called 'Nathan'. Spooky. It's some sort of telepathic herd mentality among parents. Perhaps Laurie's noticed something similar. geraint@business.co.uk (Geraint Jennings)

# 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.

'Roses are red, Violets are blue, Sugar is sweet, And so are you'. An echo here, I think. geraint@business.co.uk (Geraint Jennings)

# And everytime I see an iceberg

# It reminds me of you.

Because the most important part is submerged? Perhaps this is a reference to desire as a subconscious mechanism: it's uncontrollable because it's below the surface. Or perhaps these desires have been forced under and are forcing their way up anyway, and expressing themselves in dreams. geraint@business.co.uk (Geraint Jennings)

# Doo doo doo doo doo.

# Doo doo doo doo doo.

# Que es mas macho iceberg or volcano?

If one wanted to get Freudian, the answer would probably have to be 'volcano'. All that hot, spurting lava as the unleashing of sexual desire ;-). Contrasted with the suppression imagery of the iceberg. Alternatively, perhaps it is macho to submerge one's feelings and emotions and not to show them. Iceberg and volcano as two sides of masculinity. geraint@business.co.uk (Geraint Jennings)

# 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.

This has always been one of my favorite lines. People traditionally think of themselves beginning at sexual conception. She's breaking the traditional view and thinking back to being the food that her father ate that became the sperm that helped make her. JimDavies

During European liberation, American GIs had chocolate and cigarettes issued to them as part of their rations. These items had become sufficiently scarce in Occupied Europe that they were used for exchange. Specifically, I instantly understood the line as suggesting that her father had not eaten the Hershey bar in question, but had exchanged it for sexual favors. Not a very nice thing to say about your mother, I suppose. Or your father, really. Stuart Smoot smootsg@swbell.net

# 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.

Smoke rises (usually) so the idea of linking smoke with descending is another example of Laurie's up/down thing. It's dream disorientation, but also perhaps connected with her 'airplane' thing: what goes up must come down. I also think that linking something as insubstantial as smoke and as solid as a staircase is a) an observation about how in dreams things that are solid are 'really' nonexistent and melt away come morning, and b) how come something as solid and heavy as an airplane manages to stay up in the air? Life just isn't like that! geraint@business.co.uk (Geraint Jennings)

the reference to "Smoke makes a staircase for you to descend" is an almost direct take off of a song made popular by Frank Sinatra, called Deep in a Dream (of you). It's a very popular song, so I'm surprised someone tries to read any other meaning into it. I think it's just Laurie's way of acknowledging Frank as a great artist/singer. Obviously she's heard the song ... t.w.ogletree (two@twoinc.com)

# 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.

an 'out/into' juxtaposition, and two 'down's: one physical and one phrasal. geraint@business.co.uk (Geraint Jennings)

# Doo doo doo doo doo.

# Doo doo doo doo doo.

# Doo doo doo doo doo.

# Doo doo doo doo doo.

#

White Lily

# What Fassbinder film is it? The one-armed

The Fassbinder film is "Berlin Alexanderplatz," which (I think) was actually a 14-part series for German television. "And the florist says: White lily." In the film, she actually says "A white carnation." When the one-armed man asks why, she says "You asked for a funeral flower, didn't you?" (These are all paraphrases -- it's been many years since I saw this) Presumably, Laurie either just remembered it incorrectly, or delibarately changed it, since in America, the lily is more associated with funerals -- the stereotypical image of a corpse holding a single white lily to his breast. Also, I seem to remember that at this point in the story, he had not yet lost his arm, though I may be mistaken. -snickell@students.wisc.edu (Scott Nickell)

# 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:

# White Lily.

#

#

Late Show

#

#

# L-L-L

# L-L-Listen

# Listen T-

# L-L-

# Listen to my hearbeat.

This is mentioned in Sharkey's Night, also on this album. It's like she's sampling herself, like Public Enemy does. JimDavies

#

#

Talk Normal

#

#

# I don't know about your dreams

# But mine are sort of hackneyed.

Reminds me of the line in Strange Angels "I don't know about your Brain. But mine is really bossy." She even says it the same way. JimDavies

# 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.

I like this, judging dreams on the same basis as you'd judge a film or a book, and bringing the critical apparatus you would apply to an aesthetic experience, to the non-aesthetic experience of a dream. Also it's as though you're judging dreams as something outside of you, the creation of someone else. Dreams aren't art, but the surrealist among you might care to disagree. If you have a recurring dream, you wouldn't claim it was hackneyed or just repetitive, that's just not the way life is :-) The more recurrent the dream, the more important the message (if you believe dreams convey messages from your subconscious or wherever). To get Freudian again, of course the themes in dreams _are_ infantile, and this is the joke. geraint@business.co.uk (Geraint Jennings)

#

# 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.

Are we still in a dream? I can't decide whether the kitchen here looks like a tornado really had hit or not. A joke about literalness. Also, the feeling of being in the wrong house, is like dreaming, the experience is familiar but that's just not the way life is. geraint@business.co.uk (Geraint Jennings)

A beautiful punchline, though I have to admit that I like the version in "Classified" (United States IV) better: "I came home today / and you had rearranged the furniture / and changed your name. / And I've never seen you wear that pin-striped suit before...."Brian Raiter brianr@connectsoft.com

#

# Last night I had that dream again.

# I dreamed I had to take a test

# In a Dairy Queen on another planet.

When I've had exams, I often have this dream where I'm taking a test, and then I wake up, and then I realize that it was only a dream, and the exam is this morning, so I end up doing the test twice: once in a dream and once in reality. It happens with other stressful experiences as well. geraint@business.co.uk (Geraint Jennings)

It realates to the song on usa live called I dreamed I had to take a test on side 8. gavin (cfwa@wenet.net)

# And then I looked around

# And there was this woman.

# And she was making it all up.

# She was writing it all down.

Presumably the woman represents Laurie's subconscious, the 'person' who's directing the dream (making it all up) and then recording it as a memory (writing it all down). The juxtaposition of 'up' and 'down' here is another example of Laurie's interesting use of prepositions and of phrasal verbs. I think it gives a sense of dreamlike disorientation here. geraint@business.co.uk (Geraint Jennings)

#

# And she was laughing.

# She was laughing her head off.

Take this literally, and it's nightmarish. But perhaps it's also a symbol of the loss of control in a dream. The conscious mind is not in control, and this equates to the loss of the head. Head = consciousness. geraint@business.co.uk (Geraint Jennings)

# And I said: Hey!

# Give me that pen!

The question here is: who controls the dream? Is it the dreamer? Or is it an outside power? geraint@business.co.uk (Geraint Jennings)

#

# I turned the corner in Soho today and someone

# Looked right at me and said: Oh No!

# Another Laurie Anderson clone!

Fear of the Doppelganger: the fear that your double is wandering about out there somewhere and wants to take your place, the fear that you are not the real you. Perhaps you are only dreaming that you are you, and that one day you'll wake up and find out you're really someone else. Dreaming is partly an expression of identity, but also a temporary loss of identity. In dreams identities become confused: you can have a townful of girls all called Betty. We are torn two ways: one side of us wants to be individual, different, and another side wants to be the same as everyone else, or as someone else. What is our real identity? geraint@business.co.uk (Geraint Jennings)

# 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! Look at me! Look at me!

#

#

Language is a Virus

On the whole, people don't want change. They want things to improve without changing. It's natural. It's difficult (unless you're a visionary) to conceive of something radically different from what you know. Society is evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and it is noticeable that revolutions tend to preserve many of the characeristic features of the system they are trying to overthrow. As a Christian, I find the idea of the 'afterlife' very scary, precisely because I believe it to be unrecognizable, radically different from what we experience now. I don't believe in a Paradise which is pretty, happy and pleasant, because it's simply a symbol for the evolution we can make in our own lives. What Laurie means by this, I suppose, is that 'paradise' is a label rather than a reality: we apply it to whatever we want, and what we want is what we've got even if we don't like it. geraint@business.co.uk (Geraint Jennings)

Language is a Virus is a well-known phrase penned by William S. Burroughs, a long-time friend and sometimes collaberator of Laurie Anderson's. I believe he was referring to the ease that certain phrases could be picked up, specifically slang terms such as "cool" and "junkie" and the such. Language, in some ways, does act like a virus. Relevance to today, child psychologists are still trying to figure out why infants are able to pick up language skills so quickly. It's almost like they are infected by it. Of course, the beauty of this song is every story in it seems to deal with a type of language, the man who says Ugh, Ugh, Ugh and her friend calls it a pain cry, as if it were a secret for discomfort. Or the friend who discounts her expressions for need by asking if she was practicing for one of her "abstract performances." That is a comment on language in the 20th century as well. By asking the questions, her friend seems to be saying that language used in one-on-one conversation holds a higher value than the language that she uses in her performances. The performances, after all, are only entertainment and thus don't take on as much meaning. Then the significant other who describes all of the uncaring, mean, spiteful things that were done because "That's just my way of saying that I love you." In that case, love generally would not be expressed in those terms, but in this instance, language is a virus and may not mean what it really means. The term paradise itself is subjective. Though everyone seems to know the meaning of paradise, a Nirvana-like place where one can physically go, the "meaning of paradise is different to each person. My paradise may not have the same physical surroundings as yours. Again, words take on different meanings. The song ends with references to television where the spoken language has been dumbed down to the mentality of an eight year old for commercial reasons. Yet television is the fastest way to spread langugae. American slang terms have popped up in so many places so rapidly that some courntries, such as France, are trying to ban terms like "jeans" and "Coke." They are reacting to language as if it were a virus. The irony of the final verses are that everyone on the island is saying "look at me, look at me..." because those are the simplest expressions that they can come up with thus living down to their time on television. That of course, all ties back into the meaning of paradise. Televisions greatest charm is it can make everything on the screen look so grand even though it may be the exact same surroundings as in your own house. Thus, paradise is exactly like where you are right now, only much, much better. "I know what you're thinking about," said Tweedledum; "but is isn't so, nohow." "Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic." - Lewis Carol - From: Patrick Giblin

#

#

# Paradise

# Is exactly like

# Where you are right now

# Only much much

# Better.

#

# I saw this guy on the train

# And he seemed to gave gotten stuck

# In one of those abstract trances.

# And he was going: "Ugh...Ugh...Ugh..."

#

# And Fred said:

# "I 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 you.

# 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?

Are we conditioned to use language by stimulus-response? Do we merely parrot phrases and words according to situation? Or are we creative with language, and is language primarily communicative? Laurie makes us think about language, by making us think about what we're saying. Is what she says entertainment or a message? Or both? Or neither? I don't know what it is, but I like it :-) geraint@business.co.uk (Geraint Jennings)

#

# 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.

# Because 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

# a thing as TV. I mean -

# They just keep showing you

# The same pictures over and over.

# And when they talk they just make sounds

# That more or less synch up

# With their lips.

# That's what I think!

Could be referring to repeats (reruns), or to the fact that a TV picture is made up of (I think) 25 scans per second. So in fact the sound does 'more or less synch up with their lips'. What we see is an illusion. geraint@business.co.uk (Geraint Jennings)

#

# 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 at me! Look at me!

# Look at me! Look at me!

You stare fixedly at somebody on TV,a fixed stare you'd never give someone who was standing/sitting in the flesh in front of you. They're not really present in the same way. Also in the studio (or wherever) the TV camera is pointed fixedly at this somebody, watching their every move. But people on TV don't interact normally with their eyes a) they're reading an autocue, b) newsreaders are taught how to look down from time to time at their scripts to avoid a fixed stare at the camera/autocue (I've got a cousin who's a TV newsreader), and c) when you have two people on camera, they don't exchange glances in a normal manner. They tend to face us the viewers, rather than each other, and make little asides to each other, in that strange, stilted TV personality banter-mode they have. So I rather imagine this island full of TV people only able to interact when the camera is fixed on them, and consequently feeling rather lost, and demanding the attention they're used to. geraint@business.co.uk (Geraint Jennings)

#

# 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 saying: 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 better.

#

#

Radar (instrumental)

#

#

#

Sharkey's Night

#

# Sun's going down

# Like a big bald head

# Disappearing behind the boulevard.

#

# It's Sharkey's night.

# It's Sharkey's night tonight. 1

#

# And the manager says:

# Sharkey? He's not at his desk right now

# Could I take a message?

#

# Hey Kemosabe!

# Long time no see

# Hey Sport -

# You connect the dots!

# You pick up the pieces!

#

# Well I drove down to Big D.C.

# And I walked into Room 1003

# And there they were

# The Big Boys.

# And they were talking

# Big B

# Little O

# Little M

# Silent B

# They were saying:

# Let's teach those robots how to play hardball.

# Let's teach those little fellas a little gratitude.

#

# Hey!

# What's that big noise from the sky?

# Sounds like thunder -

# Nope.

# Sounds like the Fourth of July -

# Nope...Wrong again.

# You know? It's just those angels walking

# They're clomping around again

# Wearing those big clumsy shoes

# We got for them.

#

# Well deep

# In the heart

# Of darkest America

# Home of the Brave

#

# Well HA

# HA

# HA

# You've already paid

# For this

# Listen to my heart

# Beat. I think this whole sequence describes nuclear holocaust. The big boys in D.C. fire off the nukes to teach the "robots" (the enemy, dehumanized) in some other country a lesson. The clomping around, the Fourth of July, angels--it's the big blow up, lots of noise, and we're all going to die. And what is the very first line of the next album she puts out? "They say that heaven is like TV" We all died. Jim Showalter

#

#

Credit Racket (instrumental)

#