High Rise - a Hawkwind tribute to J G Ballard

WW follows


Flat block
Of two dimensions
Neon totem pole to the sky
Keeping scores of people stacked up so high
Above the ground
But all they can hear is the sound
Of the wind in the antennae
It's a human zoo
A suicide machine

Childhood
Of concrete cube shaped
A flypaper stuck with human life
Caged up rage
Swarming hornet hive
Tear out the telephones
Rip up the pages of directories
And wreck all these
High speed lifts and elevators
Be a sabotage rebel without a cause

High rise
Living in a high rise
High rise
Living in a high rise
High rise
Living in a high rise
High rise
All stacked up in a high rise block

High rise
Living in a high rise
High rise
Living in a high rise
High rise
Living in a high rise
High rise
All stacked up in a high rise block

Starfish
Of human blood shape
Tentacles of human gore
Spread out on the pavement from the 99th floor
Well somebody said that he jumped
But we know he was pushed
He was just like you might have been
On the 99th floor of a suicide machine

High rise
Living in a high rise
High rise
Living in a high rise
High rise
Living in a high rise
High rise
All stacked up in a high rise block

High Rise appeared on Hawkwind's 1978 album PXR5 (which has just been re-released by the Cherry Red Atomhenge label afterbeing unavailable for a ridiculously long time). The song was apparently inspired by Ballard's 1975 novel of the same name.

Lyrics are by Robert Calvvert who is, of course, featured as my avatar