Time In Babylon
This is a cover of a song written by Emmy Lou Harris
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Version 1 is a full studio recording
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lyrics version 1
Five lane highway, danger zone
SUV and a speaker phone
You need that chrome to get you home
Doin’ time in Babylon
Cluster mansion on the hill
Another day in Pleasantville
If you don’t like it, take a pill
Doin’ time in Babylon
In the land of the proud and free
You can sell your soul and your dignity
For fifteen minutes on TV
Doin’ time in Babylon
So suck the fat, cut the bone
Fill it up with silicone
Everybody must get cloned
Doin’ time in Babylon
Little boy blue come blow your horn
The crows are in the corn
The morning sky is red and falling down
The piper’s at the till
He’s comin’ for the kill
Luring all our children underground
In Babylon
We came from apple pie and mom
Through civil rights and ban the bomb
To Watergate and Vietnam
Hard times in Babylon
Rallied round the megaphone
Gave it up, just got stoned
Now it’s Prada, Gucci and Perron
Doin’ time in Babylon
Little boy blue come blow your horn
The crows are in the corn
The morning sky is red and falling down
Your song of healing spark
A way out of this dark
Lead us to a higher holy ground
Get results, get ‘em fast
We’re ready if you’ve got the cash
Someone else will be laughing last
Doin’ time in Babylon
So put that conscience on the shelf
Keep the best stuff for yourself
Let the rest fight over what is left
Doin’ time in Babylon
Little boy blue come blow your horn
The crows are in the corn
The morning sky is red and falling down
Let your song of healing spark
A way out of this dark
Lead us to a higher holy ground
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh ho ho huh
Huh huh
SUV and a speaker phone
You need that chrome to get you home
Doin’ time in Babylon
Cluster mansion on the hill
Another day in Pleasantville
If you don’t like it, take a pill
Doin’ time in Babylon
In the land of the proud and free
You can sell your soul and your dignity
For fifteen minutes on TV
Doin’ time in Babylon
So suck the fat, cut the bone
Fill it up with silicone
Everybody must get cloned
Doin’ time in Babylon
Little boy blue come blow your horn
The crows are in the corn
The morning sky is red and falling down
The piper’s at the till
He’s comin’ for the kill
Luring all our children underground
In Babylon
We came from apple pie and mom
Through civil rights and ban the bomb
To Watergate and Vietnam
Hard times in Babylon
Rallied round the megaphone
Gave it up, just got stoned
Now it’s Prada, Gucci and Perron
Doin’ time in Babylon
Little boy blue come blow your horn
The crows are in the corn
The morning sky is red and falling down
Your song of healing spark
A way out of this dark
Lead us to a higher holy ground
Get results, get ‘em fast
We’re ready if you’ve got the cash
Someone else will be laughing last
Doin’ time in Babylon
So put that conscience on the shelf
Keep the best stuff for yourself
Let the rest fight over what is left
Doin’ time in Babylon
Little boy blue come blow your horn
The crows are in the corn
The morning sky is red and falling down
Let your song of healing spark
A way out of this dark
Lead us to a higher holy ground
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh ho ho huh
Huh huh
"Time In Babylon" is a song I heard Emmy Lou Harris sing. It speaks of a modern world, slick and coldhearted. My father was a school teacher. He loved knowledge. He had two majors and three minors before he decided he'd better stop learning and start teaching. He studied greek and latin and drilled us at the dinner table over prefixes and suffixes. He compared languages, pointing out the cognates which they shared so that we would understand that language is flexible, that it's always changing, and that it is beautiful in itself. He gave us a lifelong appreciation of the written word, for careful research and somehow inspired passion for writing. He was a good teacher.
One thing that we children share is the need to live outside of Babylon. We do not have normal jobs. We do not have commercially instilled tastes. We do not have a lot in common with the world around us. We are in the world, but not of the world. We like to dress in costumes, behave as iconoclasts by creating funny images. We mix satire in with serious observation. I've run for President during every election, just for the pleasure of discussing issues that have been swept under the rug. Though this kind of humor is more the prankful excesses of an eccentric gadfly than a spiritual novitiate.
As for being in the world, but not of the world, it's possibly the way that many of us from my generation have managed to walk down a narrow road, through the gate that is straight, and not be driven mad by the inconsistency and injustice of modern society; not be consumed by what is around us.
It's not unusual ability. God wants us all to live this way. But it is perhaps an uncommon lifestyle because of the forceful marketing of the American dream, the persistence of name brand iconography and the easy process of assimilating an outward appearance, implying an inward social or spiritual awareness, without experiencing any of the sacrifice and loss which always accompanies integrity and develops moral character.
If you have the credit card you can purchase the image. You can buy clothes which access the world of the urban thug, or the up and coming starlet. Or the hip, cool, smooth rock and roller. You can dress the part without having the heart.
In many ways our modern Western world is in free-fall. We are crumbling morally, stumbling spiritually. We are disassociated from true reality, entranced by the gleaming images coming through the cinema, the widescreen television, the airbrushed gossip magazines printed on glossy paper. The actress on the cover can remove ten or fifteen years through digital photo manipulation, or facelifts and botox injections. The image becomes more important than the essence. People barely read any more. They watch. They posture. They perform their life instead of live it.
One thing that we children share is the need to live outside of Babylon. We do not have normal jobs. We do not have commercially instilled tastes. We do not have a lot in common with the world around us. We are in the world, but not of the world. We like to dress in costumes, behave as iconoclasts by creating funny images. We mix satire in with serious observation. I've run for President during every election, just for the pleasure of discussing issues that have been swept under the rug. Though this kind of humor is more the prankful excesses of an eccentric gadfly than a spiritual novitiate.
As for being in the world, but not of the world, it's possibly the way that many of us from my generation have managed to walk down a narrow road, through the gate that is straight, and not be driven mad by the inconsistency and injustice of modern society; not be consumed by what is around us.
It's not unusual ability. God wants us all to live this way. But it is perhaps an uncommon lifestyle because of the forceful marketing of the American dream, the persistence of name brand iconography and the easy process of assimilating an outward appearance, implying an inward social or spiritual awareness, without experiencing any of the sacrifice and loss which always accompanies integrity and develops moral character.
If you have the credit card you can purchase the image. You can buy clothes which access the world of the urban thug, or the up and coming starlet. Or the hip, cool, smooth rock and roller. You can dress the part without having the heart.
In many ways our modern Western world is in free-fall. We are crumbling morally, stumbling spiritually. We are disassociated from true reality, entranced by the gleaming images coming through the cinema, the widescreen television, the airbrushed gossip magazines printed on glossy paper. The actress on the cover can remove ten or fifteen years through digital photo manipulation, or facelifts and botox injections. The image becomes more important than the essence. People barely read any more. They watch. They posture. They perform their life instead of live it.