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When
the earth was still flat
And
the clouds made of fire,
And
mountains stretched up to the sky, sometimes higher, Folks roamed the earth
like big rolling kegs.
They
had two sets of arms.
They
had two sets of legs.
They
had two faces peering out of one giant head
So
they could watch all around them as they talked
while they read.
And
they never knew nothing of love.
It
was before the origin of love.
Now
there were three sexes then,
One
that looked like two men glued up back to back
Called
the children of the sun.
And
similar in shape and girth were
The
children of the earth.
They
looked like two girls rolled up in one.
And
the children of the moon were
Like
a fork shoved on a spoon.
They
were part sun, part earth, part daughter, part son.
Now
the gods grew quite scared
Of
our strength and defiance
And
Thor said, "I'm gonna kill them all with my hammer,
like I killed the giants."
But
Zeus said, "No, you better let me
Use
my lightening like scissors,
Like
I cut the legs off the whales,
Dinosaurs
into lizards."
And
then he grabbed up some bolts
And
he let out a laugh, said, "I'll split them right
down the middle. Gonna cut them right up in half."
And
then storm clouds gathered above into great balls
of fire
And
then fire shot down from the sky
In
bolts like shining blades of a knife.
And
it ripped right through the flesh
Of
the children of the sun and the moon and the earth.
And
some Indian god sewed the wound up into a hole,
Pulled
it round to our belly to remind us of the price
we pay.
And
Osiris and the gods of the Nile
Gathered
up a big storm to blow a hurricane,
To
scatter us away, in a flood of wind and rain,
And
a sea of tidal waves, to wash us all away,
And
if we don't behave they'll cut us down again
And
we'll be hopping round on one foot and looking
through one eye.
The
last time I saw you we had just split in two.
You
were looking at me. I was looking at you.
You
had a way so familiar, but I could not recognize
Cause
you had blood on your face,
I
had blood in my eyes.
But
I could swear by your expression that the pain down
in your soul was the same as the one down in mine.
That's
the pain, it cuts a straight line down through
the heart; we called it love.
So
we wrapped our arms around each other,
Trying
to shove ourselves back together.
We
were making love, making love.
It
was a cold dark evening, such a long time ago, when
by the mighty hand of Jove...
It
was the sad story of how we became lonely two-legged
creatures,
It's
the story of the origin of love.
That's
the origin of love.
--"Origin of Love" from Hedwig and the Angry Inch
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- - -
All
the songs in Hedwig absolutely kick ass. But this is my favorite.
It's based on Plato's Symposium and it's one of the best song I've
heard this year.
I've
seen the movie four times... so far.
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