Laurie Anderson - Three Songs For Paper, Film And Video lyrics

The detective novel is the
Only novel truly invented
In the twentieth century in
The detective novel
The hero is dead at the very beginning
So you don't have to deal
With human nature at all only the
Slow accumulation of facts of data

In science fiction
The hero just flies in at the
Very beginning he can bend
Steel with his bare hands he can walk in zero
Gravity he can see right through lead
Doors but no one asks how he is able to do
These things they just say
"Look! He's walking in zero
Gravity" So you don't
Have to deal with human nature at all

When TV signals are sent out
They don't stop they keep going they
Pick up speed as they leave
The solar system by now
The first TV programs ever made have been
Traveling for thirty years they are
Well beyond our solar system now all
Those characters from cowboy serials
Variety hours and quiz shows are sailing
Out they are the first true
Voyagers into deep space
And they sail farther and
Farther our, intact, still talking

And as we listen with our instruments, as we
Learn to listen farther and
Farther into space
We can hear them we listen farther
And that is all we hear
They are jamming our lines we listen
And we hear them talking, traveling
Going faster
And faster getting fainter and fainter and
As our instruments become more sophisticated
We can hear them better
Speeding away the sound
Of speeding away like a
Phone continuously ringing