Does Fame Bring Forth Madness? Lyrics

Does fame bring forth madness, or is fame to madness brought?
Can you really tell Maradonna, "Hey, it's just a sport"?
Like flames to moths, or moths to flames? From whence does it begin,
This insect flight of celebrity into oblivion?

In the thousand thousand thousand homes that all look the same,
In streets and courts and small alcoves, should you look for fame?
From the great suburban patchwork quilt, does Fame pluck a thread,
Discard it absent mindedly, and say, "This one instead" ?

Or from the homogeneous mass do the famous form themselves?
Take the leap from anonymity through the force of wills -
They themselves mould the clay when Fame's potter's wheel does turn:
Present the world with a spittoon, call it a Grecian urn.

Harder still, it seems to be, is trying to prevent
The inevitability of celebrity's descent:
A return to obscurity or increasing fame -
It hardly seems to matter which, the effect is the same.

Jackson, Brando, Pollock, Garbo - poor old Brian Wilson;
J. D. Salinger, Hemingway - it's possible to list 'em -
Plath and Morrison; Howard Hughes - all are like Conrad's Kurtz:
In fame lies a heart of darkness: celebrity's a curse.

So drive to work we toiling ants on freeways of routine;
Plot our courses on life's graph sticking strictly to the mean -
We're insects all, it matters not just in which web we're caught,
Be it fame brings forth madness, or is to madness brought.