Dark Time in Revolution

Laurie Anderson

Compositor: Laurie Anderson

The market keeps rising up. The big machines control the sea and the air
Those big machines, they gotta go somewhere.
So we keep palling em up, calling em, calling em up. No matter what.

And then those questions come up.
Like was the Constitution written in invisible ink?
Has everybody here forgotten how to think?
Is this great big boat starting to sink?

Pinpoint nukes. Ready to fight. Dressed to kill. Sure we're right.
Welcome to, welcome to, welcome to the American night.
We just keep calling em up, calling em, calling em up.
We just keep calling em up, calling em, calling em up. No matter what.

You know Tom Paine wrote the first best-seller at a dark time in the Revolution when we were losing and all the soldiers were deserting. Giving up. And the book was called Common Sense and it was really just a long list of questions. And one of the questions was: Does it make common sense for an island to rule a continent?And everybody kind of went hmmmm and they signed back up.
And today you could ask: Does it make common sense for a country to rule the world? But no matter what your answer, no matter what you think, no matter what you vote for-

We just keep calling em up, calling em, calling em up. No matter what.
We just keep calling em up, calling em, calling em up. No matter what.

We keep calling em up, calling em, calling em up.
We keep calling em up, calling em, calling em up.

And you thought there were things that had disappeared forever.
Things from the Middle Ages.
Beheadings and hangings and people in cages.

And suddenly they were everywhere.
And suddenly they're alright.
Welcome to, welcome to, welcome to the American night.

We keep calling em up, calling em, calling em up.
We keep calling em up, calling em, calling em up.