Artificial Life

(album: Ha! Ha! Ha! - 1977)

All the boys are wearing their utility drag
The girls slip identikits from their utility bags
Some refugees from suburbia are laughing
Examining each other's gags
Vibrate on sulphate when it gets late
And their velocity begins to sag

[Chorus:]
And it goes on all night, all night
And it goes on and on, the artificial life

Mary Mary got so confused
About the fusion game, what a game
Blunked on booze, she talks like a newsreel
She'll take up any kind of bleak exchange
She turned to perfection once
But realised she'd only turned to pain
She ran through divine light, chemicals, Warhol, scientology, her own sex
Before she turned away

[Chorus]

I've learned to be a stranger
I've learned to be a stranger
I've learned to be a stranger
I've learned to be a stranger
Stranger still

I should have left here years ago
But my imagination won't tell me how
This whirlpool's got such seductive furniture
It's so pleasant getting drowned
So we drink and sink and talk and stalk
With interchangeable enemies and friends
Trying on each other's skins
While we're dying to be born again.

[Chorus]