Amused to Death

Doctor, Doctor what is wrong with me?
This supermarket life is getting long.
What is the heart-life of a colour TV?
What is the shelf life of a teenage queen?

Western woman -
Western girl -

Newshound sniffs the air when Jessica Hahn goes down.
He latches on to that symbol of detachment,
attracted by the peeling away of feeling;
The celebrity of the abused shell,
the belle.

Ooh western woman -
Ooh western girl -

And the children of Melrose strut their stuff
is absolute zero cold enough?
And out in the valley warm and clean
the little ones sit by their TV screens.
No thoughts to think.
No tears to cry.
All sucked dry.
Down to the very last breath.

Bartender what is wrong with me,
Why am I so out of breath?
The captain said, "excuse me ma'am,
this species has amused itself to death".

- Amused itself to death.
- Amused itself to death.

We watched the tragedy unfold.
We did as we were told:
We bought and sold
It was the greatest show on earth
but then it was over.

We ohhed and aahed,
we drove our racing cars,
we ate our last few jars of caviar.
And somewhere out there in the stars
a keen-eyed look-out spied a flickering light:
Our last hurrah!

And when they found our shadows
grouped around the TV sets,
they ran down every lead,
they repeated every test.
They checked out all the data on their lists.
And then the alien anthropologists
admitted they were still perplexed!
But on eliminating every other reason for our sad demise,
they logged the only explanation left:
This species has amused itself to death.

No tears to cry -
no feelings left -

This species has amused itself to death.


Roger Waters, 1992.