Raven Songtext
von Alan Cumming

I was in the gym today, obviously
And, anyway, uhm
In the gym today, I met this girl
And she had all these tattoos
And they were kinda like a garlands all up her arms
Like this, almost garlands around her beautiful face
And uh, I remarked upon them and we got chatting
And, she said "Do you have any tattoos, Alan?"
And, I went "Well, I used to"
And, she went "What do you mean?"
And so, I told her the story
And I′m gonna tell you it now


So, about, uh, 15 years ago
I met and had this
Crazy, intense, ridiculous, passionate, explosive
Short lived affair with this boy
It was really, really stupid
And uhm, when I try to describe how intense
And how extraordinary it was, to people
I always say "It felt like I was the victim of a chemical attack"
That's really what it was like
For example, after two weeks of knowing him
We, each other, had our names tattooed on each other′s bodies
And I thought that was the most sensible thing
I'd ever done, in my entire life
I really did
Yeah, seriously, after two weeks
And four months after THAT
It was over
We kind of had repaired each other
In this kind of supernova of shagging
We just like BOOM we couldn't together anymore
It was just over
And of course, so then, I had this tattoo left on my body
And his name was Raven
And so I had ′Raven′ kind of on my groin
Like, just there

And all my friends, who thought I was really crazy
To get this tattoo after two weeks
Were absolutely hilarious now
Saying things like
"Well y'know, you could add O U S and make it ′ravenous'"
And "You could put a C at the beginning and make it Craven"
And uh, my favourite actually was uh
They said "You could rub a little bit of the N off
And make it Raver"
For a while, that was nice


But then, I got back into the dating game again
It got a little old
Because y′know, people would be in that vicinity
And they'd be like "Who′s Raven?"
And that really
(Stutters)
It was time for it to go, so
I happened to be in Los Angeles
And I- I was making a film in Los Angeles
And I- I went to the Cedar's Sinai Medical Centre
And they had this uh expert
This laser expert, in tattoo removal
And he was like "Alan, it's going to be fine
It won′t leave any marks at all
You will never know it was there
Because the type of ink you used was so high quality
And also, of course, the fact is
You had it done so incredibly recently"
I was like "SHUT UP, alright, don′t rub it in, come on!"
So, I had to go and have it like three or four times
This- this uh, procedure
And it was really horrible because
They had to inject you four times
Around the tattoo
In your GROIN boys, and girls
Not nice, to freeze it
And then they like, did this
Then the laser thing
And they had a little carton around it, you couldn't really see
I couldn′t really see
And they- and you'd hear this noise that would be like
(Laser removal gun noises)
I said "What′s that noise?!"
And they said "Oh, that's the laser exploding the ink in your body"
Ew
So, I had to do that, uhm, four times
And it was really horrible
It was really sort of, got really scabby
And it was really painful
It was so much more painful than actually getting the tattoo
Which, I suppose is the definition of ′karma' RIGHT THERE
Ladies and Gentlemen

So, and y'know, it′s absolutely gone now
Y′know, afterwards, if y'know
If we should meet in a bar somewhere in New York tonight
And I was to show you my groin
You would not know that I had once been marked
By this ′Raven' person
Uh, that′s unlikely to happen of course

So about a year later, I met up with Raven
Uhm, uh, back here in New York
And we met up for one of those, y'know
′Let's be friends' kind of evenings
And we′re chatting away, and he went
He said "Do you still have your tattoo, honey?"
He was kind of a cowboy
And I went "NO! I had it WRENCHED from my body by laser! You?"
And, and he said "Kinda"
I said "What d′ya mean?"
And uhm, he pulled down his pants
And uhm, (Laughs)
Where it used to say 'Alan′
It now says 'Balance′
Yes! It's true!
As if I′ve empowered to bringing balance
To one of the least balanced people I've ever met
In my entire life, Ladies and Gentlemen

As Martha Stewart said
"THAT'S A GOOD THANGGG"