First played publicly at AfrikaBurn 2014, before the main Burn (The Interpreter). Lyrics and voice by Simric Yarrow; recording and FX by Brendan Smithers with Simon Dunckley
Attention! Fellow troublemakers!
This toy is not designed for use by oblivious adults choosing a default escape route
This techno-totem will tarbaby-trap all addicts of battery-driven avoidance
Utopia-tinted 7-D spectacles are not included
Dismembered parts containing strip-mined heavy metals may be choking hazards
For those who insist on brain deforestation as their favourite setting for this planetary playstation
These instructions are also available in isiXhosa and Mandarin
Beware! Fellow troublemakers! The microchip Anansi-spider that wriggles & tickles & jiggles inside her
Was always destined to distract your mind until it corrodes and implodes
There was always going to be this table-turning time for staring at a hare’s headlights
Do you choose to analyse the Illuminati codes in its eyes?
Is someone else always going to be to blame? Must aliens come & save you from your shame?
Are you waiting for a Boerekitsch binary soundbite from God?
Are you frozen like a hardwired troll on a winter’s sunrise? Stuck with a convex Perspex perspective?
The software you seek is no fluffy furry piece of Lego. It’s letting go.
Let’s take a break from the high-octane panic in our spirits
Take a tortoise-paced pause from the dragon-chasing hero-game
Switch off the one-track programming and extend our bunny-ear antennae into the turning galaxy
Maybe we are just mechanical meaning-makers, just organic robotic jargon-jesters
And our only true freedom is to intuitively connect to our highest intention
So if we have to walk the pirate-plank and the trickster is always one quantum leap ahead
Let’s imagine we can change the rules and call the sharks for help instead
Let’s trust our DNA’s plans for us and let our bodies face the ritual blaze
Breathe in the magic mischief of our simple child inside,
breathe out the complex molecules of carbon-based fear
Breathe in the mighty gift of oxygen, breathe out with potent playful prayers
For now is another moment to burn off the paralysis of a cancerous prognosis
And achieve collective metamorphosis by electrified osmosis
Now is the time to softly sense the desert’s subtle heartbeat in our cells
Rippling through the umbilical circuits of the universe’s cables
And surrender to her delicious unpredictable vibrations
From our harey haunches to our whiskers to our silent incantations
Now the game is to embody the digital dreaming of our analog ancestors
Fall into rabbit-hole love-tunnel pleasures in a present stranger’s eyes
Go on heffalump-hunting loose-lip adventures beneath these sweetly soulful skies
Plug in to the pulsing timewarp spells of our wizard-whizzkid descendants
Listen to the supernova-forming forces in our laughing bellies and our tingling hips
Spiral-juggle bliss-bubbles and our many masks at nano-speed
Dive into the black hats of possibility, moving with luscious muscle and marrow
Swimming in the lunatic belief that we are warm-blooded angel-beasts
Whispering our vulnerable dances to the all-hearing stones
Coyly offering succulent delights to the distant trees
Touching the multi-layered mystery of this human intensity
This brave and foolish feeling being we all are inside
Knowing the trickery of today’s electronic age
Is just an interpretation of the crazy computer we call Gaia
Just a function of the light-speed imagination in our cosmic core
Just a reminder of the joy we troublemakers truly came here for
