Laurie Anderson - A Story About a Story lyrics

I wanna tell you a story – about a story
And it's about the time I discovered that
Most adults have no idea
What they're talking about
It was the middle of the summer
When I was 12 and I was the kind
Of kid who was always showing off i
Have seven brothers and sisters
And I was always
Getting lost in the crowd and so
I would do practically anything for attention

So, one day I was at the swimming pool
And I decided to do a
Flip from the high board the kind
Of dive when you're temporarily, magically
Suspended mid-air and everyone
Around the pool
Goes "Wow! That's incredible that's amazing!"

Now, I'd never done a flip before but
I thought: "How hard could it be? You
Just somersault and straighten out
Right before you
Hit the water" So I did but
I missed the pool and I landed THUNK! on
The concrete edge and broke my back

I spent the next few weeks in traction
In the Children's Ward at the
Hospital and for quite
A while I couldn't move or talk i was
Just sort of floating i was in
The same trauma unit with the
Kids who'd been burned and they were
Hanging in these rotating slings
Sort of like rotisseries or spit's machines
That would turn you around and
Around so the burns could be
Bathed in these cool liquids

Then one day, one of the
Doctors came to see me
And he told me that I
Wouldn't be able to walk
Again and I remember thinking:
"This guy is crazy i mean
Is he even a doctor? Who knows?"
Of course I was going to
Walk i just had to concentrate keep trying
To make contact with my feet
To convince them – will them – to move

The worst thing about this
Was the volunteers
Who came every afternoon to read to me
And they'd lean over the bed, and they'd
Say: "Hello Laurie" Really
Enunciating each word, as
If I'd also gone deaf and they'd open
The book "So, where were we? Oh, yes
The gray rabbit was hopping down the road
And guess where he went? Well
Nobody knows the farmer doesn't
Know the farmer's
Wife doesn't know" Nobody knew where
The rabbit had gone - but just
About everybody seemed to care
Now, before this happened
I'd been reading books like A Tale
Of Two Cities and Crime and
Punishment so the gray rabbit stories were
Kind of a slow torture

Anyway, eventually I did get on
My feet and for two
Years I wore a huge metal brace and I
Got very obsessed with John F
Kennedy because he had
Back problems too and he was the President

Much later in my life, when someone would
Ask what my childhood was like
Sometimes I would tell them this story
About the hospital and it was
A short way of telling them certain
Things about myself how I'd
Learned not to trust certain people and
How horrible it was to listen
To long pointless stories like the
One about the gray rabbit

But there was always something weird
About telling this story, that made
Me very uneasy like something was
Missing then one day, when
I was in the middle of telling it
I was describing the
Little rotisseries that the kids were
Hanging in and suddenly
It was like I was back in
The hospital just exactly the
Way it had been and I
Remembered the missing part

It was the way the ward sounded at night
It was the sounds of all the
Children crying and screaming it
Was the sounds
That children make when they're dying

And then I remembered the rest of it the
Heavy smell of medicine the smell of
Burnt skin how afraid I was and the
Way some of the beds would be
Empty in the morning and
The nurses would never
Talk about what had happened to these
Kids they'd just go on making the beds
And cleaning up around the ward

And so the thing about this story –
Was that actually I'd only told the
Part about myself and I'd forgotten the rest
Of it i'd cleaned it up
Just the way the nurses had and
That's what I think is
The creepiest thing about stories you
Try to get to the
Point you're making – usually
About yourself or something
You learned and you get your story
And you hold
On to it and every time you tell it
You forget it more