"Nothing Left But Their Names" lyrics
Laurie Anderson & Kronos Quartet Lyrics
Now recently, I got a book – listing all the animal species that have disappeared off the face of the Earth. Called 'All the Disappeared Animal Lifeforms of the World'. Now the list is really impressive. And it included all the dates and territories where the animals were last seen. Or wherever the last fossil was unearthed
Now, as you probably know: 99.9% of the species who ever lived are now extinct. So this is a very long list – including massive numbers of civets, big subsets of spotted lizards, every last Mastodon. The short based bear. The sabertooths. Fifteen chapters on sloths. And one whole chapter on the one-eared dinosaur
Now, it was amazing. You cannot imagine how many kinds of weasels have come and gone. Now the publishers claim that the book is a definitive masterpiece. In fact, according to them – the book actually weighs approximately forty weasels. And so, goodbye to the disappeared ones. There they go, hopping and jumping away. Swimming and floating away. Gone forever. Vaporized, as if they'd never existed. Except for a few bones. And footprints. Nothing left but their names
You know, the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet is Aleph. And the letter Aleph actually has no sound. It's a letter with no sound. A mender letter. So, to say Aleph, you open your mouth, and you think of the letter, and you start to say it, and then you stop. And that is Aleph
Now, that's the thing with words – they leave so much to the imagination. Like in Yoga class. Where the teacher is saying things like: "Now, imagine your breath is filling the entire room. Or imagine that your legs are planted on the ground, and they keep going down, and down, and down underground, like roots." At fifteen feet down, and you know that actually you feel that
And really, they could just go on and on in this vein, like: "Now imagine that you've swallowed your head, and it's inside your stomach and you're upside down, and you can't open your eyes, and you're completely stuck in there..." You know, things like that
But I have to say, it often is much better to talk about things – than to actually do them. Take for example, a very long expedition to the North Pole
Now, you know the reason that I really love the stars – is that we cannot hurt them. We can't burn, we can't melt them or make them overflow. We can't flood them, or blow them up. Or turn them out. But we are reaching for them. We are reaching for them
And, ah yes, the moon and the stars are up there. Like acquaintances, that we always meant to befriend. Yes, I meant to learn their names. But for various reasons having to do with lack of time – and lack of ambition – I never did do that. And they remained up in the sky, as nameless as if we'd never been here at all
Now, as you probably know: 99.9% of the species who ever lived are now extinct. So this is a very long list – including massive numbers of civets, big subsets of spotted lizards, every last Mastodon. The short based bear. The sabertooths. Fifteen chapters on sloths. And one whole chapter on the one-eared dinosaur
Now, it was amazing. You cannot imagine how many kinds of weasels have come and gone. Now the publishers claim that the book is a definitive masterpiece. In fact, according to them – the book actually weighs approximately forty weasels. And so, goodbye to the disappeared ones. There they go, hopping and jumping away. Swimming and floating away. Gone forever. Vaporized, as if they'd never existed. Except for a few bones. And footprints. Nothing left but their names
You know, the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet is Aleph. And the letter Aleph actually has no sound. It's a letter with no sound. A mender letter. So, to say Aleph, you open your mouth, and you think of the letter, and you start to say it, and then you stop. And that is Aleph
Now, that's the thing with words – they leave so much to the imagination. Like in Yoga class. Where the teacher is saying things like: "Now, imagine your breath is filling the entire room. Or imagine that your legs are planted on the ground, and they keep going down, and down, and down underground, like roots." At fifteen feet down, and you know that actually you feel that
And really, they could just go on and on in this vein, like: "Now imagine that you've swallowed your head, and it's inside your stomach and you're upside down, and you can't open your eyes, and you're completely stuck in there..." You know, things like that
But I have to say, it often is much better to talk about things – than to actually do them. Take for example, a very long expedition to the North Pole
Now, you know the reason that I really love the stars – is that we cannot hurt them. We can't burn, we can't melt them or make them overflow. We can't flood them, or blow them up. Or turn them out. But we are reaching for them. We are reaching for them
And, ah yes, the moon and the stars are up there. Like acquaintances, that we always meant to befriend. Yes, I meant to learn their names. But for various reasons having to do with lack of time – and lack of ambition – I never did do that. And they remained up in the sky, as nameless as if we'd never been here at all
