We Call Upon the Author Songtext

von Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

What we once thought we had we didn't, and what we have now will never be that way again
So we call upon the author to explain

(Doop doop doop doop dooop)

Our myxomatoid kids spraddle the streets, we've shunned them from the greasy-grind
The poor little things, they look so sad and old as they mount us from behind
I ask them to desist and to refrain
And then we call upon the author to explain

(Doop doop doop doop dooop)

Rosary clutched in his hand, he died with tubes up his nose
And a cabal of angels with finger cymbals chanted his name in code
We shook our fists at the punishing rain
And we call upon the author to explain

(Doop doop doop doop dooop)

He said everything is messed up around here, everything is banal and jejune
There is a planetary conspiracy against the likes of you and me in this idiot constituency of the moon
Well, he knew exactly who to blame
And we call upon the author to explain

(Doop doop doop doop dooop)

Prolix! Prolix! Nothing a pair of scissors can't fix!
Prolix! Prolix! Nothing a pair of scissors can't fix!

(Doop doop doop doop dooop)

Well, I go guruing down the street, young people gather round my feet
Ask me things, but I don't know where to start
They ignite the power-trail straight to my father's heart
And once again I call upon the author to explain

(Doop doop doop doop dooop ...)

We call upon the author to explain

Who is this great burdensome slavering dog-thing that mediocres my every thought?
I feel like a vacuum cleaner, a complete sucker, it's fucked up and he is a fucker
But what an enormous and encyclopaedic brain
I call upon the author to explain

(Doop doop doop doop dooop ...)

Oh rampant discrimination, mass poverty, third world debt, infectious disease
Global inequality and deepening socio-economic divisions
Well, it does in your brain
And we call upon the author to explain

(Doop doop doop doop dooop ...)

Now hang on, my friend Doug is tapping on the window (Hey Doug, how you been?)
Brings me back a book on holocaust poetry complete with pictures
Then tells me to get ready for the rain
And we call upon the author to explain

(Doop doop doop doop dooop ...)

I say prolix! Prolix! Something a pair of scissors can fix

Bukowski was a jerk! Berryman was best!
He wrote like wet paper maché, went the Heming-way weirdly on wings and with maximum pain
We call upon the author to explain

(Doop doop doop doop dooop ...)

Down in my bolthole I see they've published another volume of unreconstructed rubbish
"The waves, the waves were soldiers moving". Well, thank you, thank you, thank you
And again I call upon the author to explain
Yeah, we call upon the author to explain

Prolix! Prolix! There's nothing a pair of scissors can't fix!