We Who Are About To Crash Offer You A Smoke
"I no longer love the way you hold your pens and pencils" is a line that any one of a thousand writers might write. But not many would have that line accompanied by bagpipes, or have those bagpipes do the Raelettes part in a call-and-response based on "What'd I Say." Laurie Anderson would, and did. Bagpipes are, of course, inexcusable.
LAURIE ANDERSON
Big Science
(Warner Bro.)
"I no longer love the way you hold your pens and pencils" is a line that any one of a thousand writers might write. But not many would have that line accompanied by bagpipes, or have those bagpipes do the Raelettes part in a call-and-response based on "What'd I Say." Laurie Anderson would, and did. Bagpipes are, of course, inexcusable. The joke, however, is a good one.
•The surprise about last year�s hotc ha-single-by-critical-consensus �O Superman�/�Walk The Dog� was how playful it was, how unsolemn. Anderson is an artmusic type, with non-linear eccentricities, snip-and-paste lyrical methods and en garde musical thrusts, but she�s funny in a flip, deadpan way. She�s likely to toss off a wicked Dolly Parton imitation or toss in a couplet like �Well I feel so bad, 1 feel so sad/But not as bad as the night I wrote this song� (from �Walk The Dog,� not on this LP debut).