enoweb |
lyrics |
EVERYBODY'S MOTHER / STEP UP
From the unreleased but widely bootlegged album My Squelchy Life.
Transcribed by David Bass.
Something… went badly wrong
At first, we didn’t really
notice
We got used to bumping about together and stepping on each
other’s toes
Funny how that happens
We felt it in different ways
Some people thought they were getting bigger
Or their skin was over-sensitive
And they needed to insulate themselves with shopping
Others felt squeezed, choked, and confined
And sought open spaces,
which they never found
But the world was getting smaller and smaller
It was like a balloon
going down
Everything getting tiny, brighter, more intense, and squashed up
together
It was cluttered, uncomfortable
You couldn't find anywhere to
sit down
I was everybody's mother in nightly tears before the television news
My children, in flux, cyclones and revolutions
It was all going sour,
all going sour
I was scrubbing individual stones on a huge beach
I was making
sandwiches for the whole of Somalia
I was shouting "fire" in a thousand
languages
I was climbing a million bytes with my failing fingers
I was
making languages a million fires
I was making trillions on fine wires
I
was scrubbing fingers
I was beaching whales
I was firing dikes
I
was…
I was suddenly very tired
I know, I miss you
Really…miss…you…all
(singing) Flow all loves your braid and know (*)
And one bitter bay
Who gave all the rows of wind
Who gave them away?
Set up, oh set up the boys
Set up for the show
No one who was
there that night
Gave out or ought to know
Set up, oh set up a (indistinct)
You know that we will bake
In
all that we change in all
It's all we have to show Whenever I'm to fade
that way
So on goes the show
(* Note: I have no confidence that my hearing of this line is right - I just cannot figure it out, and this is the closest I can come to the sound of the words. Corrections welcome)