John Cale - Sam and Rimsky Korsakov

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