Transverse City

There's a brand new shopping center seven
storeys high
There's bound to be a sale or two--something
we can buy
There's four floors of pakrking and we're sure
to find a space
We'll spend all the money that the government
doesn't take

Down in the mall
I'll be your man
We'll go shopping , babe
It's something we can stand
Down in the mal
We will abide
Up on the escalator
Darling, we will ride

Shopping for a pair of shoes, shopping for a hat
We're buying some of this and we're buying
some of that
We'll shop up a storm 'til we can't shop no more
Then we're stopping off at the video store

Down in the mall
I'll be your man
We'll go shopping, babe
It's something we can stand
Down in the mall
We'll be allright
Monday throught Saturday
"Til nine o'clock at night

We're buying CD'sand we're buying lingerie
We'll put it on a charge account we're never
gonna pay
Department store, camera store, tobacco store,
appliance store
Sporting goods, oriental imports,
You buy everything you want and then you
want more

Down in the mall
I'll be your man
We'll go shopping, babe
It's something we can stand
Down in the mal
We will abide
Up on the escalator
Darling, we will ride
Down in the mall

It's 5:00 P.M. on a weekday, friend
There's one of me and two million of them
The whistle blows and the factories close
There's a million more commuters on the access roads
The brake lights flash--there's an RV crashed
I'm in the passing lane going nowhere fast
The traffic crawls and the engine stalls
I'm stuck on the edge of the urban sprawl

Gridlock
Up ahead
There's a line of cars as far as I can see
Gridlock
Goin' nowhere
Roll down the window, let me scream

Oh yeah, ain't it a shame
We're all jammed up at the interchange
The paramedics and the CHP
Wait impatiently for catastrophes
I'm spending half my days like this
I might as well be working on the midnight shift
The radio's tuned to the traffic news
And everybody's choking on monoxide fumes

Gridlock
Up ahead
There's a line of cars as far as I can see
Gridlock
Goin' nowhere
Roll down the window, let me scream
I can close my eyes and dream
I can close my eyes and dream
I can close my eyes and dream

It's 5:00PM on a weekday, friend
I'm going home but I don't know when
I hate this traffic and I hate this town
Gotta honk my horn, try to get around
I feel like going on a killing spree
Tomorrow I'm going on the RTD
The traffic crawls and the engine stalls
I'm stuck on the edge of the urban sprawl

Gridlock
Up ahead
There's a line of cars as far as I can see
Gridlock
Goin' nowhere
Roll down the window, let me scream
I can close my eyes and dream

Told my little Pollyanna
There's a place for you and me
We'll go down to Transverse City
Life is cheap and Death is free
Past the condensation silos
Past the all-night trauma stand
We'll be there before tomorrow
Pollyanna take my hand

Show us endless neon vistas
Castles made of laser lights
Take us to the shopping sector
In the vortex of the night
Past the shiny mylar towers
Past the ravaged tenements
To a place we can't remember
For a time we won't forget

Here's the hum of desperation
Heres the test tube mating call
Here's the latest carbon cycle
Here's the clergy of the mall
Here's the song of shear and torsion
Here's the bloodbath magazine
Here's the harvest of contusions
Here's the narcoleptic dream

Told my little Pollyanna
Here's a place where we can stay
We have come to see tomorrow
We have given up today
Down among the dancing quanta
Everything exists at once
Up above in Transverse City
Every weekend lasts for months

Here's the hum of desperation
Heres the test tube mating call
Here's the latest carbon cycle
Here's the clergy of the mall
Here's the witness and the victim
Here's the relatives' remains
Here's the well-known double helix
Here's the poisoned waves of grain
Here's the song of shear and torsion
Here's the bloodbath magazine
Here's the harvest of contusions
Here's the narcoleptic dream
Here's the hum of desperation

When I was young, times were hard
When I got older it was worse
First words I ever heard:
"Nobody move, nobody get hurt"

It's the long arm, it's the strong arm
It's the long arm of the law
It's the long arm, it's the strong arm
It's the long arm of the law

After the war in Paraguay
Back in 1999
I was laying low in Lima
Working both sides of the borderline

It's the long arm, it's the strong arm
It's the long arm of the law

You can run, but you can't hide...

Well, I have to live like a fugitive
Oh yeah, oh yeah
Someone's coming after me
And I'm running, running, yeah

Now, don't protest your innocence
Only the dead get off scot free
And when the judge says, "Whodunit?"
You'll be crying, "Not me! Not me!"

I want to live alone in the desert
I want to be like Georgia O'Keefe
I want to live on the Upper East Side
And never go down in the street

Splendid Isolation
I don't need no one
Splendid Isolation

Michael Jackson in Disneyland
Don't have to share it with nobody else
Lock the gates, Goofy, take my hand
And lead me through the World of Self

Splendid Isolation
I don't need no one
Splendid Isolation

Don't want to wake up with no one beside me
Don't want to take up with nobody new
Don't want nobody coming by without calling first
Don't want nothing to do with you

I'm putting tinfoil up on the windows
Lying down in the dark to dream
I don't want to see their faces
I don't want to hear them scream

Splendid Isolation
I don't need no one
Splendid Isolation

Splendid Isolation
I don't need no one
Splendid Isolation