Rise, Sam and Rimsky-Korsakov Songtext
von John Cale

Words: Sam Shepard

I knew a guitar player once, who called the radio friendly
He felt a kinship, not with the music so much as with the radio′s voice,
Its synthetic quality,
Its voices distinct from the voices coming through it.
Its ability to transmit the illusion of people at a great distance


He slept with the radio,
He talked to the radio.
He disagreed with the radio.
He believed in four way radio land.
He believed he would never find this land.

So, he reconciled himself to listening to it only.
He believed he had been banned from the radio land,
And was doomed to vault the airwaves forever
Seeking some magical channel
That would reinstate him to his long lost heritage.