How was I supposed to know you were out here all alone?
No, don't you give me that crap
Let's just go to a bar and see what's on tap
Bet you thought you'd come out on top
Payin'em big just to make a shit flop
You don't have to tell me that I'm not cool
but I'm not sorry for breaking the rules
We all need someone else's home
We all need someone else's home
Hey man, I'm gonna need your home
So c'mon, go out and get me a room
I'm not gonna try and be okay
Not gonna make an effort to do the right thing
Everybody's telling me I have to be afraid
if I want to be successful, get laid and paid
Take up a collection for the filthy rich
You see, they're the ones who own all the needs
The more you get, the more you need
And so I ask the television, "What's my dream?"
We all want mercy; mercy, please!
Well, I gave you mercy and you gave me the police
We all want mercy; mercy, please!
I gave you mercy, you gave me the police
Everybody thinks their God is really cool
He kinda looks like them, and he tells'em what's true
So if someone asks if I'm confident in what I've got
Lean your face against your hand and tell'em I'm not
I was talking to God the other day
He was tellin me how he doesn't talk to people that way
But if you want to live, boy, you better die
And if you don't want to die, then man, you better stay alive
We all want a calm and consistent hand
We all want a certain 'n golden land
Make sure it's cool and it has a lot of rules
and doesn't ask me nothing, and doesn't tell me I'm a fool
Don’t ask me nothing, don’t tell me I’m a fool
This poem comes at an interesting moment for me because I am finally making my way through Brueggemann’s “Prophetic Imagination” which may be influencing how I am seeing this more than it should, but hear me out.
ReplyDeleteSo first, it has a delightful “Lou Reed” quality to it which I love (though that’s not to say that there is not something original here either). My interpretation however is that it challenges the attitude of our current culture which is the product of a modern “royal consciousness”. This is to say that people have become incapable of caring for others and incapable of having to suffer in anyway themselves. Thus there is a twofold dilemma where certainty and gain will look however one defines it for their situation, while the rest of the world defines that success and gain for you. When you don’t conform to either you are, at best, a marginalized outsider. That’s my take away anyhow.
It's probably never wrong to read my stuff in light of Brueggemann's Prophetic Imagination. It's my favorite book and was monumental in my intellectual development.
DeleteI appreciate your interpretation of the poem. You've definitely caught on to some of the elements that went into its creation.