Laurie Anderson’s O Superman startled young me into a new and most creative phase in my life.

Hansel and Gretel are alive and well, and they're living in Berlin. She is a cocktail waitress - he had a part in a Fassbinder film. They sit around at night now drinking tonic and gin. And she says, Hansel: You're really bringing me down. And he says, Gretel? Sometimes you can really be a.....bitch.

I remember almost falling over when I heard Massenet's lovely tenor aria "O soverain" and realized not only did Anderson take the melody (transformed) for "O Superman" but also the French lyrics, which she Anglicized into something new.

Such a pity she ended with that lousy dirtbag.

Brava r3. Classic pointless bitchery!

Thank you, OP! What a great match for a Thursday.

And, yeah, we’ve all befriended saints who collect dirtbags.

Double dipping to add a video just because

Big Science is an incredible album, though I wish CDs had been available at the time, because there is a lot more material from United States Live that deserved to be on the record had there been more space.

I can see the future, and it's a place, about 70 miles east of here, where it's brighter

Linger on over here

Indeed, r1...

I'm thinking back to when I was a child. Way back to when I was a tot. When I was an embryo. A tiny speck, just a dot. When I was a Hershey bar in my father's back pocket.

Margaret Atwood is overrated. Sentence by sentence, she's not a very good writer.

But no one is allowed to say that.

The album had a good sound and atmosphere. The videos and her shows were campy.

R10, I've only read two of her books. Honestly, I found The Handmaid's Tale to be a classic. Perhaps I liked it more for the ideas than the sentences though? I can't remember my thoughts of her writing. I also read The Testaments, which I know is more written like a popular type novel, but I did find it very easy and "can't put it down", if not being wholly satisfying.

I watched Home of the Brave recently, R11, and I don't think I found it campy, personally. It was quite interesting in how she used the band, and she had a very good understanding of the unsettling relationship between humans and technology. Some of the images she used are pure nightmare fuel.

I've always quite liked her, even if throughout her entire career she's basically just remade the same show over and over. She's very engaging, and switches things up enough, at least.

I have that 5 record set of her long 80s piece United States I-IV. I got it for Christmas in high school! I still listen to it from time to time, and enjoy it. I still listen to my record collection. I remember as a kid wishing it wasn’t live and was all done in the studio so it sounded like Big Science and Mr. Heartbreak, but now... I like the haphazard, atmospheric quality of it.

I got that too, R14, though I downloaded it from iTunes about 10 years ago, so it was put into 4 "discs" rather than 5. I found the 4th to probably be my favourite, becoming progressively creepier as you hurtle towards the end. "Going somewhere?"

I wish someone had recorded the actual show. I would've loved to have seen it in its entirety.

Some of the stuff she did just resonates. People talk a lot about "O Superman", but how about "Language is a Virus"?:

Well, I dreamed there was an island

That rose up from the sea

And everybody on the island

Was somebody from TV

And there was a beautiful view

But nobody could see

'Cause everybody on the island

Was screaming: 'Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! LOOK AT ME!'

And another from the same song:

[italic] Well I walked uptown

And I saw a sign – 'Today’s lecture:

Big Science and Little Man'

So, I walked in and there were all these salesmen there

With a big pile of electronics

And they were singing – "Phase, lock, loop!

"Neurological bonding,

"Video disc."

They were saying – "We’re gonna link you up...

"We’re gonna phase you in!"

They said – "Think of it this way...

"Picture a Christmas tree

"With lots of little sparkly lights

"And each light is totally separate

"But they’re all sort of hanging off the same wire

"Get the picture?"

And I said – "Count me out."

And they said – "We’ve got your number."

And I said – "Count me out!

"You gotta count me out!"[/italic]

Pass the salt.

The part of "O Superman" that always gave me chills is quite simply:

"Ok. Who is this [italic]really[/italics]?"

^Ah, well I fucked that up.

"And I said: 'Ok. Who is this [italic]really[/italic]?'"

'Cause when love is gone, there's always justice.

And when justice is gone, there's always force.

And when force is gone, there's always mom - hi, mom!

So hold me mom in your long arms, in your automatic arms, your electronic arms, in your arms.

So hold me mom in your long arms, your petrochemical arms, your military arms, in your electronic arms.

During the newspaper strike the networks asked all the writers

To read their columns on TV.

The writers weren't actors. They did all the wrong things.

They squinted into the lights,

Wore rumpled clothes, and used big words.

The signs for the deaf were getting more and more obscure.

Lots of qualifying phrases and, uh... awkward pauses.

So the producers kept saying:

"Ok, buzz words only.

"Two syllables, tops."

[quote] Laurie Anderson’s O Superman startled young me into a new and most creative phase in my life.

And what did you actually create during this phase? Please share.

I think he edged to it and shot a big lead of semen.

Fuck, don't say "semen". I'm so fucking toey at the moment.

Pukeworthy.

Not semen.

Anderson's preening, derivative, confused "art".

Boooooooolsheeeeeeeet.

Good evening. Welcome to Difficult Listening Hour:

The spot on your dial for that relentless and impenetrable sound of 'difficult music'.

So, sit bolt upright in that straight-back chair,

Button that top button,

And get set for some difficult music.

[quote]r10 Margaret Atwood is overrated. Sentence by sentence, she's not a very good writer. But no one is allowed to say that.

Officially the stupidest thing I’ve read at DL.

I became aware of Anderson and was totally taken by her at once painfully human and otherworldly detachment when I watched her iridescent documentary “Heart of a Dog,” which I now own.

The most Laurie Anderson thing to ever happen to Laurie Anderson...

While writing for school, I am listening to “Landfall,” Anderson’s collaboration with the Kronos Quartet, which was was inspired by her experience of Hurricane Sandy, and it is rather sublime.

The whole album is available on YouTube for free. Totally worth checking out:

I always assumed she was a lesbian and Lou was her beard.

I love Poison

"A small bullet, a piece of glass, and your heart just grows around it"

Odd trivia tidbit: “O Superman” was almost released by Piano Records, the small little label run out of the UK by David Cunningham (the man who created, and was, The Flying Lizards). Anderson and someone else had brought it to him in hopes to release it in the UK, because “gimmick” records often did well on the charts in the UK and could breakout an unknown artist. When Cunningham heard it he was so impressed with it... he said NO! He claimed it was so good it would probably do well and there was no way his tiny label could keep up with the demand. They went with someone else. Cunningham had been right!

Another early fave I love

She needs to release an album about her deceased husband called Big Asshole.

She became a big enabler, r34. It's sad

I love "New York Social Life" too, R33, though it's kinda a depressing take on human relationships, huh?

Well she’s no Kim Carnes!

Her PSAs from, I think, the early 90s are interesting:

So, we're marching around the club and, um, this woman, one of the Bunnies, was just getting to work and she said, um: 'So, hey, uh, what's going on here?' And I said, 'Well, we're, um, marching to protest the economic exploitation of women and the treatment of women as animals,' and I handed her one of the free pamphlets.

And she said: 'Listen. Honey. I make $800 a week at this job. I've got three kids to support. This is the best job I've ever had. So, if you want to talk about women and money, why don't you go down to the Garment District, where women make 10¢ an hour, and why don't you go and march around down there?'

And I said: 'Hmmm.'