Beck - The Information Album Lyrics

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Elevator Music


1, 2, you know what to do
Alright

I'm uptight super
Gathered out of the frame
I shake a leg on the ground
Like an epileptic battery man
I'm making my move
Lettin' loose like a belt
Little worse for wear
But I'm wearing it well
Tell me what's wrong
With a little grind n' bump?
When the stereos erupt
With a kick drum punch?
Let's do it once
Probably do it again and again
Like you did it before
But you're more erratic than then
And you had a rough night
And the night's just begun
Let a little bit of this
Pass with this gun
Don't let it hold you back
But you're already set
No dead flowers gonna grow
'Til the dirt gets wet

Put the elevator music on
Pull me back where I belong
The ambulance sings along
The fly on the wall
Doesn't know what's wrong
If I could forget myself
Find another lie to tell
If I had a soul to sell
I'd buy some time
To talk to my brain cell

Gutbucket and a bottle of paint
It's like the schoolhouse lights
Will never turn on again
Til the bottom wears off
Of these high-heeled boots
The bodies all move
Some backbone roots
Everybody workin' hard
'Til the yard is all clean
The dishes wash good
In the washin' machine
Now you brush your teeth
And you comb back your hair
You drive your vehicle
Like you just didn't care
You're walkin' to work
With the boys and the girls
And you're doin' it there
It's the end of the world
Now everybody's sweatin'
Forgettin' what's on their mind
With your hand like a mirror
You can see what's inside
When you're down and out
Conquer it, there's nothing that's real
It's like a platinum card
Too amputated to feel

I got a silicon bible song
Paranoid Jumbotron
?? with the weekend off
The fly on the wall
Doesn't know what's wrong
If I could forget myself
I'd find another lie to tell
The bottom of an oil well
Cell phone's ringing
I could talk to my brain cell

All the dudes with banjos
Chicks with wicks
Animals with bananas
Got my hand like a mirror
You can see what's inside

 

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Think I'm In Love


I really think I better get a hold of myself
Don't wanna let the night get ahead of myself
Whisperin' her love through a smoke ring smile
She doesn't know what happens when she's around

I think I'm in love
But it makes me kinda nervous to say so
I think I'm in love
But it makes me kinda nervous to say so

Doodododododooodoo

Probably lay my head on a wooden floor
Tell her I was tired from working the store
Counting all the cash from an old shoebox
Saving up to buy her something she wants

I think I'm in love
But it makes me kinda nervous to say so
I think I'm in love
But it makes me kinda nervous to say so

What if it's wrong?
What if it's wrong
To pray in vain?
What does it mean
To fake your death?
To wake up tainted?

Take a little picture in a photobooth
Keep it in a locket and I think of you
Both of our pictures, face to face
Take off your necklace and throw it away

I think I'm in love
But it makes me kinda nervous to say so
I think I'm in love
But it makes me kinda nervous to say so

Really think I better get a hold of myself
Don't wanna let the night get ahead of myself
Whisperin' her love through a smoke ring smile
She doesn't know what happens when she's around

I think I'm in love
Think I'm in love
Think I'm in love
Think I'm in love
Think I'm in love
Think I'm in love
Think I'm in love
Think I'm in love

 

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Cellphone's Dead


Strange ways coming today
I put a dollar in my pocket
And I threw it away
Been a long time
Since a federal dime
Made a jukebox sound
Like a mirror in my mind
Control my worries
Fix my thoughts
Throw my hopes
Like a juggernaut walks
Now let-down souls
Can't feel no rhythm
Sorry entertainers
Like aerobics victims
Hybrid people
Light a wooded matchstick
Toxic fumes and the
Burning plastic
Beats are broken
Bones are spastic
Boombox talkin'
With a southern accent
Voodoo curses
Bible tongues
Voices comin'
From the mangled lungs
Give me some grits
Some get-down shit
Don't need a good reason
To let anything rip

Radio's cold
Solar's infected
One by one
I'll knock you out
God is alone
Hardware defective
One by one
I'll knock you out

Mr. Microphone making
All the damage felt
Like a laser manifesto
Make a mannequin melt
There's people phonin' in
Like it's unlimited minutes
Going through the motions
Just to savor they did it
Treadmill's running
Underneath their feet
So they feel like they're going somewhere
But they're not
So let's put boots
On the warehouse floor
Comin' to you
Like a rope on a chainstore
Throwing equipment
From a moving van
Grab a microphone
Like a utility man
Now fix the beat
Now break the rest
Make a kick drum sound
Like an S.O.S.
Get a tow-truck
Cause it's after dark
And the dance floor's full
But everybody's double-parked!

Cell phone's dead
Lost in the desert
One by one
I'll knock you out
Eye of the sun
Is out of its socket
One by one
I'll knock you out
One by one

This jam is real... that's right

Eye of the sun
Eye of the sun
Eye of the sun

Ahhhhhhhhhh

 

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Strange Apparition


Lord, please don't forsake me
In my Mercedes Benz
All the riches and the ruins
Now we all know how that story ends

Strange apparition
Haunting my brain
Standing on the last legs
Of a dream that walked away

When the Lord rings my front door
And asks me what I got to show
Besides the dust in my pockets
And the things that just eat away my soul

Strange apparition
Haunting my brain
There's some permissions
Of a dream that got cremated

The least I had to lose from
Is the most I seem to care
Anything should make you happy
Nothing could make you scared

We'll be on the shoreline
When that heavy ship goes down
Did you think that you were lucky?
You should see yourself now

 

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Soldier Jane


Nobody cares what dress she wears at all
Tattered rags and paper bags and all
She's the one sleeping in the dirt
Drag her down, don't let her drown in dirt

Gamblers trade candles for the dice
Mothers drag their canes across the bridge
No one wake her up, she's sleeping still
Put a candle on the window sill

Soldier Jane, don't be afraid
Taking heart out of the shell
Taking heart out of the shell
Throw it away

?? strike the darkness from the room
Knives, they take the poison from the wound
'Cause they drag us down into the ruins
Sleep away our cares, dirty boots

Soldier Jane, don't be afraid
Taking heart out of the shell
Taking heart out of the shell
Throw it away

 

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Nausea


1, 2, 3, 4

Now I'm a seasick sailor
On a ship of noise
I got my maps all backwards
And my instincts poisoned
In a truth blown gutter
Full of wasted years
Like blown-out speakers
Ringin' in my ears

Oh it's nausea, oh nausea
And we're gone
It's nausea, oh nausea
And we're gone

Now I'm a straight-line walker
In a black-out room
I push a shopping cart over
In an Aztec ruin
With my minion fingers
Working for some God
Who could see his own reflection
In a parking lot

Oh it's nausea, oh nausea
And we're gone
No it's nausea, oh nausea
And we're gone

Now I'm a priest teenager
On a tower of dust
I'm a dead generator
In a cloud of exhaust
I eat alone in the desert
With skulls for my pets
I rate the days, one to ten
With lead cigarettes

It's nausea, oh nausea
And we're gone
It's nausea, oh nausea
And we're gone

 

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New Round


Reactions of night
The heavens are foreboding
A chain link wind
Is breaking me open
Lessons of the day
On a blackboard night
Seem to be erased
And the beacon has no light

 

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Dark Star

One, two, one two

Disappointment condition a perfunctory prescription
Of an indigent mindset, a belligerent silence
We got all we need turning out of a tin can
Thinking about the remand of a social hurt

Listening to noise on the battery tape deck
A Judas train wreck anonymous suspect
Hovering in carbon monoxide cremations
Loners waste away inside of vacant locations

Think tanks empty international dream bank
Plug in my reactor to the fallout zone
The enemies' story is a lot like mine
And if you get to the point then you had better deny

Dark star, darken eyes thats closing
Sees through the shards from a scar thats open

Autopilot drivers riding out in the ice age
Infidels swallowed in a vanishing point
Ammunition souls shooting holes in the ozone
Widows' tears washing a soldiers' bones

Sterilized egos delirium sequels
Punctured by the arrows of American Eagles
Robot to teach you bout the rules that will lead you
Backspace my brain my equilibrium goes

Dark star, just an eye thats closing
Sees through the shards from a scar thats open

One, two, one two
You know what to do

 

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We Dance Alone

Send a telegram
Tell me your thoughts
I want to live for a day
And the way that we lost

But it was under the train
Got crissed not crossed
Left the keys in the car
So the legs have to walk

Desert terrain
And the wayward plain
Waiting for rain
And the dad ain't afraid

Of what pain might be
To the pleasure we knew
Before we had to move on
I did my best for you

Darker
We dance alone this way
It's getting darker
We dance alone this way

I waited for a fire
To collide with the planet
Tried to get back on the world
As it was turning around

Small as the pieces
Waiting after crash
Watching every minute
Of the [Incomprehensible] passed

'Cause motions wearing down
All my thoughts
'Til they're all smoothed out
Like rocks were tossed

Nooks and brooks
Why did it go?
We descended on the reality
Down below

Darker
We dance alone this way
It's getting darker
We dance alone this way

I'm gonna grab a train
Gonna break the hope
I put the life beating out
Like a stray in a boat

Let the scenery pass
Like a blown-out TV
Thought I saw a ghost
But it might have been me

Might have been the world
That was moving too fast
Caught up in the future
That was coming to pass

Now looking for a place
Where the lights unravel
Last ditch road
Trespassers travel on

Darker
We dance alone this way
It's getting darker
We dance alone this way

We dance alone this way

 

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No Complaints


We are aimless
And the target is an empty wall
We're out of patience
With smiles that cut across her face
No complaints
But I wish I had my top of my brain
I'd like to walk
But the sun doesn't know we're awake

We're in spaceships
Take a visit to the Pyranees
Paid vacations
Send a brochure from the agency
No complaints
But my girlfriend dug a ditch in my room
Walking papers and a hole
Straight out from my shoes

No complaints
But it's harder
To believe in the truth
She'll write a message
On a billboard
And I'll send it to you

We feel painless
Check the status on the info line
In some ways tainted
Radiation from the factory
No complaints
But it's overrated, that's for sure
Take a bus back
From Little Rock, Arkansas
Or Modesto
That's where my drawl comes from

 

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1000BPM


Electronic actors and astromagnetic
Corrupted files from galactical planets
Writing interplanet code
Thoughts get transported
From neanderthal skulls
Digital food malls
Telemarketing people
With cellular headsets on their skulls
Selling you wisdom
From a plexiglass prism
Biochemical jism
Hits you with its rhythm
They act like Earth
Was a terrestial prison
A zoo for humans
Put their cities into ruins
Now we can feel what we're doing
We move the stratosphere in plastic
When you're out alive, spastic
What else can the dust try to tell us?
Comin' to you
One thousand beats per minute
Comin' to you
One thousand beats per minute
Comin' to you
One thousand beats per minute
Comin' to you
One thousand beats per minute

Categorizing in a crash
Taking pictures
And a backstage pass
Gasoline on fire
Tried to pull off this mask
But there was really a face
Which I just read from a plan
Security cameras strapped to his back
Fulfilled prescriptions, antidotes
Media in a quarantined submission
Consultants with remote souls
Unanimous votes
Portions of the proceeds
Go to chain store victims
In the midget conditions
With remodeled kitchens
Comin' to you
One thousand beats per minute
Comin' to you
One thousand beats per minute
Comin' to you
One thousand beats per minute
Comin' to you
One thousand beats per minute

 

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Motorcade


These toys are all lifeless
The armor's worn off
The shadow of a shadow
Is the ghost of a bomb
Skyscraper standing
In a desert alone
A helicopter searchlight
Is searching for no-one

We're all pushing up the tin can mountain top
The smokestack clouds with glory attached
We're all pushing up the tin can mountain top
The smokestack clouds with glory attached

The sky creatures dance
In a parking lot wind
That blows from a tundra
Where the jungle begins
If there's hope in a roadblock
Guns in a church
The lord will take his motorcade
And drive us into the dirt

We're all pushing up the tin can mountain top
The smokestack clouds with glory attached
We're all pushing up the tin can mountain top
The smokestack clouds with glory attached

There's a skyscraper on the moon
And a man standing on a window
Forty-second floor
There's a light beaming through the galaxy
Telling me everything's gonna be OK

We're all pushing up the tin can mountain top
We're all pushing up the tin can mountain top
We're all pushing up the tin can mountain top
We're all pushing up the tin can mountain top
We're all pushing up the tin can mountain top

 

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The Information


Ahhh
The information is ravenous
The ticker tape feeds the mind
Looking for a lost transmission
A heaven that we left behind
When the information comes
We'll know what we're made from
And the skyline rising
Highrise eyes see for you

Say hello to a mannequin
The ghost of our lonely tongue
Reaching out ??
I was ?? down below
When the information comes
We'll know what we're made from
The skyline rising
Highrise eyes see for you

She's the sister of avarice
A wife of a poisonous tongue
She's the eye of a battle of stones
A sister out of control
When the information comes
We'll know what we're made from
The skyline rising
Highrise eyes see for you

 

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Movie Theme


Looking for a ladder
In the stratosphere
So I can be happy
Let my bones melt away

Stranded on a plane
That was circlin' round
I carry my heart
Like a soldier with a hand grenade

Walking down the aisle
Of the supermarket
Looking for the things for
To carry my senses away

Listen to a voice
On the telephone
Somebody's calling
Somebody on the way

Looking for a home
In the magazine page
Wages in my pocket
Gonna buy me anything I need

Searching for bait
Battery light
Wash me away
Gaping at the oceans below

I'm not scared
'Cause there's nobody there
Mind is awake
Anything could lead me astray

Listen to the voice
On the radio wave
Somebody needs you
Somebody who is
On their way

 

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Horrible Fanfare / Landslide / Exoskeleton


The Horrible Fanfare

Ashes of ancients
The nations repainted
The chain gang chatelaine
Changing the station
The theme song playing
The anthem of normal
The horrible fanfare
The horns get distorted
On a public annoucement
The towns are impounded
Where the order resounded
Cowards towered around it
Powerline buzzards
Surveilling the night
Talons in flight
The fake horizons ignite

Banality lives
Where hysteria kills
Civilian jungles
With malaria pills
Animals bleed
To buy a star from the night
Avenue kids
Wear a scar like a stripe
Send up a signal
To the heavenly rescue
When the poison's coming
From the person you're next to
Let the voltage of thought
Pull the plug from the wound
Cause if the soul is a sympton
The condition is you

???
???
???

Landslide

We know it's a letter bomb hand-me-down
This thought is a perjury blindfold
When she crawls from the Himalayan rain
With the birds of prey and weapons on fire

She's ridin' a landslide down to me
Cuttin' the shackles off of me
Shakin' the dead birds from the trees
She's takin' the only air I breathe

Iron lungs and a plate glass sermon
Don't call it death on the installment plan

She's pulling the armour on my back
Raking the coals over the tracks
Taking the knife out from the stack
She's bringing the blood that I have back

She's coming to see it's all a sin
Coming to see the sun again
Coming to wash it off again
Coming to see herself again
Coming to see herself again
Coming to wash it off again

Exoskeleton

Person 1: I picture like a...like an illuminated manuscript, you know? Made by monks. They hand-do them... in record form. And you'd have to have them handdone each time

Person 1: Like, depending, like change depending on what mood you're in. Like the best...or depending on like when you assume from a different age, they'll mean something different

Person 2: I don't like it when they change. It frightens me

Person 1: You want them to stay the same more?

Person 2: It makes me feel like someone's pushing me from below. Or trying to put me, turn me over, and put me down. That's what it makes me feel like when they change

Person 1: It has to tell you how to live. It is an instruction guide. It's subtle, It's--it doesn't push, it nudges...i-it entices...it seduces. It has to encompass the whole world, everything that has been, is, and will be, and could take it into space. And that's why we build a spaceship. Because that's ultimately what space travel is all about, is sending a shuttle from Earth into space. And not just in some, like, space shuttle. It's got a little phone coming off of it, you need your own...glowing...you know, multicolor...spaceship. It would be inside the spaceship, and also the spaceship. Like an exoskeleton