Lydia Lunch, Why, Why Was I Born An American
Excerpt from “Conspiracy of Women” (C.O.W.), 1990
Performance June 5th at Howl! Happening, 7pm
Limited edition vinyl re-issue on Other People Records…On sale at Howl! Happening or visit other-people.net.
” Why, why, why, why was I born an American? And not what would better suit me if you’re lookin’ really good; a Palestinian, a Pakistani, Syrian, Lebanese, Turkish, Filipino, Japanese, Chinese, Puerto Rican, Afro-Cuban American, or even better yet, my favorite of all, a Colombian. Yeah. Why wasn’t I born a Colombian? A Colombian with big, big, big, big, big, bi, big balls, yeah. And maybe a quarter kilo of coke. Yeah. Because then I could better understand the need to pilfer, to pillage, to plunder, to rape, to rape, rape, rape, rape, rape, rape, rape, rape like wild, wild, wild Indians high, high, high, high, high, high, high, high up in those mountains. Yeah. Immaculate camouflage. Creases down the front. Cap. Bayonet. Submachine gun on tripod. Little square prayer rug that every hour on the hour I would get down and I’d get down on my hands and knees and I would pray to the Gods of War, yeah. I pray to the Gods of War. I’d pray to the Gods that gave me war. The Gods that gave me something to do, somewhere to go on a weekend, something to live and die for.
And you know how I feel about God. I hate God. I hate God. I hate God because God was the first cop. God was the first cock. God was the first big-dicked, low-down, good-for-nothing motherfucker that subjected me to this life sentence in the first place; where I’ve been trying to escape for the last ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty years of my rotten, stinkin’ life. But I know there is no escape.
But that doesn’t stop man. That doesn’t stop man from playing God. That doesn’t stop man from playin’ God. And God all the fun because he could penalize, he could punish, he could destroy, he could mutilate, he could eliminate, annihilate, he could destroy the world. And man, just like the dinosaur, with which he has so much in common, will also become extinct. Because all of man’s useless, stupid, war-mongering, greedy, blood-lusty, corrupt ideas are also now extinct.
Oh, I pity the fools. I pity those poor, reckless fanatics lost in that time without limits, that limbo, that world without end. But night after night, I’m still on my hands and knees and I’m still prayin’ and when I’m down there I pray for one thing: boys. Boys. I pray for boys that don’t know any better, that don’t know any different. I pray for boys that don’t know any better than getting those eighteen bullet holes blown in their bellies when they travel in those squads of fifteen to twenty-year-olds; whose sole job, whose only job, whose only job that I can respect is to execute the executioners, is to kill the killers, is to eliminate the judges, the juries, the cops, the chiefs, the kings. Hey baby, the King is dead, long live the Queen. The King is dead, long live the Queen. “
