Lyrics Another Day in America - Laurie Anderson

Another Day in America

And so finally here we are, at the beginning of a whole new era.
The start of a brand new world
And now what?
How do we start?
How do we begin again?
There are some things you can simply look up, such as:
The size of Greenland, the dates of the famous 19th century rubber wars,
Persian adjectives, the composition of snow
And other things you just have to guess at
And then again today’s the day and those were the days and now these are the
days and now the clock points histrionically to noon.
Some new kind of north
And so which way do we go?
What are days for?
To wake us up, to put between the endless nights
And by the way, here’s my theory of punctuation:
Instead of a period at the end of each sentence, there should be a tiny clock
that shows you how long it took you to write that sentence
And another way to look at time is this:
There was an old married couple and they had always hated each other,
never been able to stand the sight of each other, really.
And when they were
in their nineties, they finally got divorced.
And people said «Why did you wait
so long?
Why didn’t you do this a whole lot earlier?»
And they said «Well,
we wanted to wait until the children died.»
Ah, America.
And yes, that will be America;
a whole new place just waiting to
happen.
Broken-up parking lots, rotten dumps, speedballs, accidents and
hesitations, things left behind.
Styrofoam, computer chips…
And Jim and John, oh, they were there, And Carol, too.
Her hair pinned up in
that weird beehive way she loved so much, and Greg and Phil, moving at the pace
of summer
And Uncle Al, who screamed all night in the attic.
Yes, something happened to
him in the war, they said, over in France, and France had become something they
never mentioned, something dangerous
Yeah, some were sad to see those days disappear.
The flea markets and their
smells, the war
All the old belongings strewn out on the sidewalks, mildewed clothes and old
resentments and ragged record jackets
And ah, these days.
Oh, these days
What are days for?
To wake us up, to put between the endless nights
And meanwhile all over town, checks are bouncing and accounts are being
automatically closed, passwords are expiring, and everyone’s counting and
comparing and predicting:
Will it be the best of times, will it be the worst of times, or will it just be
another one of those times?
Show of hands, please
And ah, this world, which like Kierkegaard said, can only be understood when
lived backwards.
Which would entail an incredible amount of planning and
confusion
And then there are those big questions always in the back of your mind.
Things like:
Are those two people over there actually my real parents?
Should I get a second Prius?
And you, you who can be silent in four languages:
Your silence will be considered your consent
Oh but those were the days before the audience, and what the audience wanted,
and what the audience said it wanted
And you know the reason I really love the stars is that we cannot hurt them.
We can’t burn them or melt them or make them overflow.
We can’t flood them or
blow them up or burn them out
But we are reaching for them
We are reaching for them
Some say our empire is passing, as all empires do
And others haven’t a clue what time it is or where it goes or even where the
clock is
And oh, the majesty of dreams.
An unstoppable train.
Different colored
wonderlands, freedom of speech and sex with strangers
Dear old God: May I call you old?
And may I ask: Who are these people?
Ah, America.
We saw it.
We tipped it over, and then, we sold it.
These are the things I whisper softly to my dolls, those heartless little
thugs dressed in calico kilts and jaunty hats, and their perpetual white toothy
smiles
And oh, my brothers.
And oh, my sisters.
What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They flow and then they flow.
They come, they fade,
they go and they go.
No way to know exactly when they start or when their time
is up
Oh, another day, another dime
Another day in America
Another day, another dollar
Another day in America
And all my brothers.
And all my long lost sisters
How do we begin again?
How do we begin?