Laurie Anderson - Word of Mouth lyrics

In 1980, as part of a
Project called Word of Mouth, i
Was invited, along with eleven other
Artists, to go to Ponape
A tiny island in the middle of the Pacific
The idea was that we'd sit around talking
For a few days and that the conversations
Would be made into a talking record

The first night we were all really jet
Lagged but as soon as we sat
Down the organizers set up all these mics
And switched on thousand-watt light bulbs
And we tried our best to
Seem as intelligent as possible

Television had just come to Ponape
A week before we arrived
And there was a strong
Excitement around the island
As people crowded around the few sets

Then the day after we arrived
In a bizarre replay of the first
TV show ever broadcast to Ponape
Prisoners escaped from a jail, broke
Into the radio station and murdered the
DJ then they went off on
A rampage through the jungle armed
With lawnmower blades in all
Four people were murdered in cold blood

Detectives, flown in from
Guam to investigate, swarmed everywhere
At night we stayed around in our
Cottages listening out into the jungle
Finally the local chief decided to hold
A ceremony for the murder victims
The artist Marina Abramović and I went
As representatives of our group, to film it

The ceremony was held in
A large thatched lean-to
And most of the ceremony
Involved cooking beans
In pit's and brewing a dark
Drink from roots the smell was
Overwhelming dogs careened around barking
And everybody seemed to be having
A fairly good time, as funerals go

After a few hours, Marina and I
Were presented to the chief
Who was sitting on a raised platform
Above the pit's we'd been
Told we couldn't turn
Our backs on the chief at any time
Or ever be higher than he was so
We scrambled up onto the platform
With our film equipment and sort of
Duck-waddled up backwards to the chief

As a present I brought one
Of those Fred Flintstone cameras, the kind
Where the film canister is also
The body of the camera
And I presented it to the chief he
Seemed delighted and began to click off
Pictures he wasn't advancing the
Film between shots, but since
We were told we shouldn't
Speak unless spoken to
I wasn't able to inform him
That he wasn't going
To get twelve pictures, but only one, very
Very complicated one

After a couple more hours
The chief lifted his hand and
There was absolute silence

All the dogs had suddenly stopped barking
We looked around and saw the
Dogs all their throats had been
Simultaneously cut, and their bodies
Still breathing, pierced with rods
Were turning on the spit's the chief
Insisted we join in the meal
But Marina had turned green
And I asked if we could just have ours to go

They carefully wrapped the dogs in leaves
And we carried their bodies away