LyricMeaning

The Soul Is A Bird
Laurie Anderson

In 1984, as part of the press for the tour I was doing in Japan, I was asked to go to Bali and speak about the future with the prince of Ouboud. Now the idea was that I would represent the Western world, the prince the Southern world, and the Japanese press representative would represent whatever was left. The conversations would be published in a large book, scheduled for release one year after the concert tour. Now as press this didn't really seem like a great way to advertise concerts but it sounded like fun anyway.
And I stayed at the palace in one of the former king's harem houses. Each of the king's wives had had her own house guarded by a pair of animals, a bear and a fox for example. By the time I got there, years later, the menagerie had dwindled a bit. My house was guarded by two tropical fish. Bali was extremely hot in the afternoons and the conversations with the prince drifted along randomly from topic to topic. The prince was a bon vivant trained in Paris and he spoke excellent English and when he wasn't in the palace he was out on the bumpy back roads racing cars. So we talked about cars, a subject I know absolutely nothing about, and I felt that as far as representing the Western world was going, I was failing pretty dismally. Then, on the second night, the prince served an elaborate feast of Balinese dishes. At the end of the meal, the conversation slowed to a halt, and after a few minutes of silence he asked:

€” Would you like to see the cremation tapes of my father?

The tapes were several hours long and were a record of the elaborate three-month ceremony shot by the BBC. When the king died the whole country went to work, building an enormous funeral pyre for him. After months of preparation, during which time the corpse continues to reside in the living room, they hoisted the body to the top of this rickety, extremely flammable structure, and lit a match. The delicate tower crumbled almost immediately, and the king's body fell to the ground with a sickening thud. Suddenly, everyone began to cheer.

Later, I learned that the Balinese believe that the soul is a bird and that when the body falls it shakes the bird loose and gives it a hit start on its way to heaven.


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Lyrics by Laurie Anderson

  A Curious Phenomenon   Another Day in America   Baby Doll   Babydoll   Bagpipe Solo   Beautiful Pea Green Boat   Beautiful Red Dress   Beginning French   Big Science   Blue Lagoon   Bodies In Motion   Born, Never Asked   Bright Red   Broken   Cartoon Song   City Song   Classified   Closed Circuits   Coolsvile   Coolsville   Dance of Electricity   Dark Angel   Dark Time In The Revolution   Day The Devil   Democratic Way   Difficult Listening Hour   Dream Before   EngliSH   Example #22   Excellent Birds   Falling   False Documents   Finnish Farmers   Four, Three, Two, One   Frames For The Pictures   Free Fall   Freefall   From The Air   Gravity's Angel   Hey Ah   Hiawatha   I Dreamed I Had To Take A Test   In Our Sleep   In Our Sleep [Instrumental][Mix]   It Tango   It Was Up In The Mountains   John Lilly   Kokoku   Language is a Virus   Langue D'amour   Late Show   Let X = X   Let X=X   Life on a String   Lighting Out For The Territories   Looking For You; Walking And Falling   Love Among The Sailors   Mach 20   Maria Teresa Teresa Maria   Monkey's Paw   Muddy River   My Compensation   My Eyes   My Right Eye   New Jersey Turnpike   New York Social Life   Night In Baghdad   O Superman   O Superman (For Massenet)   Odd Objects   On The Way To Jerusalem   One Beautiful Evening   One White Whale   Only an Expert   Over The River   Pieces and Parts   Poison   Poison [Instrumental][Mix]   Private Property   Puppet Motel   Ramon   Red Hot   Same Time Tommrow   Same Time Tomorrow   Say Hello   Sharkey's Day   Sharkey's Day (Single Edit)   Sharkey's Night   Slip Away   Smoke Rings   So Happy Birthday   Someone Else's Dream   Song For Two Jims   Speak My Language   Speechless   Speechless (The Eagle and the Weasel)   Statue of liberty   Steven Weed   Stiff Neck   Strange Angels   Strange Perfumes   Structuralist Filmmaking   Sweaters   Talk Normal   Talkshow   Telephone Song   The Beginning of Memory   The Big Top   The Cultural Ambassador   The Day the Devil   The Dream Before   The Dream Before (for Walter Benjamin)   The End Of The World   The Geographic North Pole   The Guests   The Healing Horn   The Hollywood Strangler   The Island Where I Come From   The Lake   The Language Of The Future   The Mailman’s Nightmare   The Mysterious "J"   The Mysterious \   The Mysterious "J"   The Night Flight From Houston   The Ouija Board   The Puppet Motel   The Rotowhirl   The Salesman   The Stranger   The Ugly One With The Jewels   The Visitors   Thinking Of You   Three Songs For Paper, Film And Video   Three Walking Songs   Tightrope   Time And A Half   Transitory Life   Turning Time Around [Lou Reed]   Voices On Tape   Walk The Dog   Walking & Falling   Walking & Falling   Walking Falling   Washington Street   White Lily   Word Of Mouth   World Without End   Yankee See

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