John Cale - Rise, Sam and Rimsky Korsakov lyrics

Words: Sam Shepherd

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 voice as 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 a far away 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 prowl the airwaves forever

Seeking some magical channel

That would reinstate him to his long lost heritage