Everybody's Mother

(album: My Squelchy Life - 1991)

Something… went badly wrong
At first, we didn't really notice
We got used to bumping about together and stepping on each other's toes
Funny how that happens

We felt it in different ways
Some people thought they were getting bigger
Or their skin was over-sensitive
And they needed to insulate themselves with shopping

Others felt squeezed, choked, and confined
And sought open spaces, which they never found

But the world was getting smaller and smaller
It was like a balloon going down
Everything getting tiny, brighter, more intense, and squashed up together
It was cluttered, uncomfortable
You couldn't find anywhere to sit down

I was everybody's mother in nightly tears before the television news
My children, in flux, cyclones and revolutions
It was all going sour,
all going sour

I was scrubbing individual stones on a huge beach
I was making sandwiches for the whole of Somalia
I was shouting "fire" in a thousand languages
I was climbing a million bytes with my failing fingers
I was making languages a million fires
I was making trillions on fine wires
I was scrubbing fingers
I was beaching whales
I was firing dikes
I was…
I was suddenly very tired

I know, I miss you
Really…miss…you…all

Flow all loves your braid and know
And one bitter bay
Who gave all the rows of wind
Who gave them away?

Set up, oh set up the boys
Set up for the show
No one who was there that night
Gave out or ought to know

Set up, oh set up a (indistinct)
You know that we will bake
In all that we change in all
It's all we have to show Whenever I'm to fade that way
So on goes the show