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TV Can Teach Me

from Control Songs by David Garland

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lyrics

TV Can Teach Me

How could this man have done what he did?

This man or thing, the one in the News.

He killed his wife, then he killed himself.

I can’t help but wonder
how he chose his moment.

He must have boiled over,

or maybe planned slowly.

A crime of passion is a thing beyond,

beyond the scope of my emotions.

“Are there indications that the violence is growing?”

[laughter—“You shut up!”]

I can’t help but wonder

what good this news does me.

I watch it all nightly,

but still I don’t get it.

The men in power—how do they choose?

When faced with choice they forge ahead.

They know what’s best, or so it seems.

I can’t help but wonder

who they ask for guidance.
They have their advisors.

I guess they’re sufficient.

I can’t decide just what to do.

I’m well informed, but still I feel

“like a ghost from the past in the Nuclear Age.”

[laughter—“You shut up!”]

I can’t help but wonder

if TV can teach me

how to make moral choices,

if I watch the News nightly.

credits

from Control Songs, released September 1, 1986

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David Garland New York, New York

Composer/singer/multi-instrumentalist David Garland has been steadily shaping songs in new ways since 1980.

"Like many great songwriters before him, Garland pushes the limits of acceptable harmony and dissonance, yet never at the expense of beauty. If it's not possible for popular music to reach the heights of the great classical masters, it seems no one has told David Garland."
--Sean Lennon
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