Laurie Anderson, Kronos Quartet - Dreams lyrics

Don't you hate it when people
Tell you their dreams

You know, they say things like: "I had
This dream there was
This man, and he was my father no! No, no
No - wait, he was my uncle! And, no, no, no
Wait - he was my father! No, uh, wait
I'm not sure"

And you say: "Please don't tell me your
Dream" But they go on anyway

"yeah, I think, yeah – it was
My father and he, and
He had this bloody severed head"

And they tell you this dream like it
Was a movie you might wanna see
Sometime and not something that's
Happening only in the back of their own head
You know, a while ago
I was in Germany and I
Walked into a huge recording
Studio and in the middle of the studio was a
Man wearing no clothes playing the flute
And covered with flies and there
Were enormous mics all over the room
And, when I got closer
I realized the mics were all tiny microphones
– attached all over his body

And these mics picked up every little sound
So the engineers kept saying: "Uh
We can hear your shirt rustling
Can you take it off?"

And a few minutes later: "Um
Your pants are really loud
They're gonna have to go too and, and y'know
The shoes are deafening"

So he was standing there shivering
And playing and there were
Mics inside the flute too
That recorded his breath
As it blew through the tube
And turned into notes

And in the mix
The sounds from all the microphones combined
Into a huge symphony and when
You put headphones on
The sound was really soft spatial

The breath rushes into one ear
And curves around the
Top of your skull and chords and harmonics
And turns around and around
And blows out the
Other ear so being in your head
Is like being in a huge draughty
Bar with the wind blowing through

No, it wasn't like being in
A head filled with
Brains, and blood, and teeth
But something completely light
And empty and full of wind and music