Amused to Death

Doctor Doctor what is wrong with me This supermarket life is getting long What is the heart life of a colour TV What is the shelf life of a teenage queen Ooh western woman Ooh western girl News hound sniffs the air When Jessica Hahn goes down He latches on to that symbol Of detachment Attracted by the peeling away of feeling The celebrity of the abused shell the belle Ooh western woman Ooh western girl And the children of Melrose Strut their stuff Is absolute zero cold enough And out in the valley warm and clean The little ones sit by their TV screens No thoughts to think No tears to cry All sucked dry Down to the very last breath Bartender what is wrong with me Why am I so out of breath The captain said excuse me ma'am This species has amused itself to death Amused itself to death Amused itself to death We watched the tragedy unfold We did as we were told We bought and sold It was the greatest show on earth But then it was over We ohhed and aahed We drove our racing cars We ate our last few jars of caviar And somewhere out there in the stars A keen-eyed look-out Spied a flickering light Our last hurrah And when they found our shadows Grouped around the TV sets They ran down every lead They repeated every test They checked out all the data on their lists And then the alien anthropologists Admitted they were still perplexed But on eliminating every other reason For our sad demise They logged the only explanation left This species has amused itself to death No tears to cry no feelings left This species has amused itself to death "Years later, I saw Bill Hubbard's name on the memorial to the missing at Aras. And I...when I saw his name I was absolutely transfixed; it was as though he was now a human being instead of some sort of nightmarish memory of how I had to leave him, all those years ago. And I felt relieved, and ever since then I've felt happier about it, because always before, whenever I thought of him, I said to myself, 'Was there something else that I could have done?' "I'd rather die, I'd rather die..." And that always sort of worried me. And having seen him, and his name in the register - as you know in the memorials there's a little safe, there's a register in there with every name - and seeing his name and his name on the memorial; it sort of lightened my...heart, if you like." "When was it that you saw his name on the memorial?" "Ah, when I was eighty-seven, that would be a year, ninete...eighty- four, nineteen eighty-four."