Present
Every Bloody Emperor
Nutter Alert
Abandon Ship!
In Babelsberg
On the Beach
By this we are all sustained: a belief in human nature and in justice and parity...all we have is the faith to carry on. Imperceptible the change as our votes become mere gestures and our lords and masters determine to cast us in the roles of serfs and slaves in the new empire's name. Yes and every bloody emperor claims that freedom is his cause as he buffs up on his common touch as a get-out clause. Unto nations nations speak in the language of the gutter; trading primetime insults the imperial impulse extends across the screen. Truth's been beaten to its knees; the lies embed ad infinitum till their repetition becomes a dictum we're traitors to disbelieve. With what impotence we grieve for the democratic process as our glorious leaders conspire to feed us the last dregs of imperious disdain in the new empire's name. Yes and every bloody emperor's got his hands up history's skirt as he poses for posterity over the fresh-dug dirt. Yes and every bloody emperor with his sickly rictus grin talks his way out of nearly anything but the lie within because every bloody emperor thinks his right to rule divine so he'll go spinning and spinning and spinning into his own decline. Imperceptible the change as one by one our voices falter and the double standards of propaganda still all our righteous rage. By this we are all sustained: our belief in human nature. But our faith diminishes - close to the finish, we're only serfs and slaves as the empire decays.
It might come in a letter, darkness falls in a telephone call; I await the unexpected with one ear to the party wall. Is it the pricking of the conscience, is it the itching of hair shirt, is it the dictionary definition of a precipice to skirt? It's the nutter alert. Though this face is familiar something in it has bred contempt; I never asked for your opinion or your back-handed compliments. Oh, but here comes that special nonsense all the words out in a spurt, the unhinging of the trolley as the mouth begins to blurt... it's the nutter alert I can see we're in trouble from that glint in the eye you've got; there's no sense to the story, comprehensively lost, the plot. And how contorted is that logic you so forcefully exert: you're a car crash in the making, head-on, that's a racing cert. It's the nutter alert, this is the nutter alert.
Oh, the heptagenarians got behind the decks while the skeleton crew went through the motions. It was only the medication that was keeping them erect. Yeh, the devil got the best tunes so god knows what comes next. And it's difficult to think of anything less magic than the aged in pursuit of the hip. At the lifeboat station there's a mounting panic... they're going overboard for this one - abandon ship! Oh, the humanitarians took themselves below while they tried to debate the latest motion; meanwhile only the medication served to keep them on the go. So it's devil take the hindmost: we sail on the sloop John Doe. And it's difficult to think of anything that's factual now we find ourselves in Alzheimer's grip; so at disembarkation it's no names, no pack-drill, we're all anonymous on this one - abandon ship!
The city's spread beneath my feet, but not the one that I was after while I've been pounding out this beat the length of the Kudamm. Street legends on the tourist map, a fading script in Gothic, out in the studio they're rehearsing in drag for a lark. Come on, let's get lost in the dark. Tale another step, another move, another pace, what isn't written in the manuscript is a note to play with grace and if I exit from this story in a way I might retrace it will have fallen through the cracks when I come back in any case another time's another place. The city's spread beneath my feet from the top of the Mercedes tower and I can see the darkness closing in hour by hour. But I can't take another step, no filling in, no cut and paste, a bankrupt process for the memory, this terrain is laid to waste. No, nothing's written in the history books that doesn't leave a nasty taste; so should I start to tell the story will you put me in my place? 'Cause it'll all be crash and burn when I return...in any case another time's another place. Just when did this get broken? I don't know where to begin - I got a Ubahn ticket and a Flohmarkt token.... I'm in trouble in the rubble of Berlin The light is getting dimmer, the walls of history close in. In Babelsberg they're hunting for a different Stimmung that predates the war. That was before, that was before, that was a different Berlin, that was another Berlin, that was before in Berlin.
If we had all the time in the world we might talk about how it used to be. We could have thrown in our cards when the going got hard but evidently we went on interminably. Right now I want to walk towards the sea, hoping you're still in step with me. All joking apart let's play it from the heart because at last even the Silver Surfer agrees: the wave you brave rides on a deeper complexity. Ah, come on: surf's up! Even the Silver Surfer agrees.