Laurie Anderson - The Mysterious J lyrics

In the book there are several chapters about
Women talking and women writing now
It seems likely that men invented writing
And wrote what, maybe ninety
Maybe ninety-five percent of everything
That's ever been written
Oh, there is the recent theory that a woman
The mysterious 'J', wrote much of
The Old Testament, but
Only because God was portrayed
In these books as
Patriarchal, tyrannical and inconsistent -
The way, presumably
Only a woman would write about a man

But, I think I can picture this
'J' scribbling away and laughing

Although the first time I saw the Bible
Re-enacted was sometime in the 70s
And there was a
Cable TV show in the Midwest and Bible study
Groups would act out parts of the Bible
But these were pretty
Low budget productions, and shot in a
Church basement or somebody's rec room
And all the prophets had towels
Wrapped around their heads for turbans
But you could see the tags, the ones with
The washing instructions
Sort of sticking out in back
There were very few women on
These tapes they tended to
Be the odd shepherdess or
Dancing girl bit part

Then last year I was invited
To perform in Israel
And I was very excited because I
Wanted to see Jerusalem
Where this mysterious 'J'
Had spent her life writing and working, and
The Gulf War had made me even more
Curious so I did some asking around, some
Informal research, and I talked to an Israeli
Woman who was living in New York
And she was really having a
Hard time living there

And she was always complaining
About American men, and she'd say:
"You know, American men are
Such wimps, I mean
They're always talking about their feelings"
And I said: "They are?"
And she said she really liked
Israeli men because they
Were so tough and because they all had guns
And I said: "Guns? you like guys with guns?"
And she said she did and
Went on about how terrible
It was that Clinton wanted
To reduce the army, and
She was so adamant about this
That I started to get
Kind of worried yeah, I
Thought, yeah that's true
What are all these military people going to
Do when they lose their jobs?
And then I thought: Well, hang on, we've got
All these service industries now
Things like psychotherapy
And the military approach to
Psychotherapy would really be
Kind of perfect, really efficient and fast
You know: "Listen, you are nothing
You are a worm! And if
You don't get that mother
Complex solved by 0400 hours
You are dead meat!"