Amused To Death

<br>Doctor Doctor what is wrong with me<br>This supermarket life is getting long<br>What is the heart life of a colour TV<br>What is the shelf life of a teenage queen<br>Ooh western woman<br>Ooh western girl<br>News hound sniffs the air<br>When Jessica Hahn goes down<br>He latches on to that symbol of detachment<br>Attracted by the peeling away of feeling<br>The celebrity of the abused shell the belle<br>Ooh western woman<br>Ooh western girl<br>And the children of Melrose<br>Strut their stuff<br>Is absolute zero cold enough<br>And out in the valley warm and clean<br>The little ones sit by their TV screens<br>No thoughts to think<br>No tears to cry<br>All sucked dry<br>Down to the very last breath<br>Bartender what is wrong with me?<br>Why am I so out of breath?<br>The captain said excuse me ma`am<br>This species has amused itself to death<br>Amused itself to death<br>Amused itself to death<br>We watched the tragedy unfold<br>We did as we were told<br>We bought and sold<br>It was the greatest show on earth<br>But then it was over<br>We ohhed and aahed<br>We drove our racing cars<br>We ate our last few jars of caviar<br>And somewhere out there in the stars<br>A keen-eyed look-out<br>Spied a flickering light<br>Our last hurrah<br>Our last hurrah<br>And when they found our shadows<br>Grouped around the TV sets<br>They ran down every lead<br>They repeated every test<br>They checked out all the data on their lists<br>And then the alien anthropologists<br>Admitted they were still perplexed<br>But on eliminating every other reason<br>For our sad demise<br>They logged the explanation left<br>This species has amused itself to death<br>No tears to cry, no feelings left<br>This species has amused itself to death<br>(switch channels)<br><br><br>[Alf Razzell:] "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...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?` [background: "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."<br>[woman:] "When was it that you saw his name on the memorial?"<br>[Alf:] "Ah, when I was eighty-seven, that would be the year, ninete...eighty-four, nineteen eighty-four."