Watching TV

Album: Amused To Death (1992)
Play Video
  • We were watching T.V.
    Watching T.V.
    We were Watching T.V.
    Watching T.V.

    In Tiananmen Square
    Lost my baby there
    My yellow rose
    In her bloodstained clothes

    She was a short order pastry chef
    In a Dim Sum dive on the Yangtze tideway
    She had shiny hair
    She was the daughter of an engineer

    Won't you shed a tear
    For my yellow rose
    My yellow rose
    In her bloodstained clothes

    She had perfect breasts
    She had high hopes
    She had almond eyes
    She had yellow thighs

    She was a student of philosophy
    Won't you grieve with me
    For my yellow rose
    Shed a tear

    For her bloodstained clothes
    She had shiny hair
    She had perfect breasts
    She had high hopes

    She had almond eyes
    She had yellow thighs
    She was the daughter of an engineer
    So get out your pistols

    Get out your stones
    Get out your knives
    Cut them to the bone
    They are the lackeys of the grocer's machine

    They built the dark satanic mills
    That manufacture hell on earth
    They bought the front row seats on Calvary
    They are irrelevant to me

    But I grieve for my sister
    People of China
    Do not forget do not forget
    The children who died for you

    Long live the Republic
    Did we do anything after this
    I've a feeling we did
    We were watching T.V.

    Watching T.V.
    We were watching T.V.
    Watching T.V.
    She wore a white bandanna that said

    Freedom now
    She thought the Great Wall of China
    Would come tumbling down
    She was a student

    Her father was an engineer
    Won't you shed a tear
    For my yellow rose
    My yellow rose

    In her bloodstained clothes
    Her grandpa fought old Chiang Kai-shek
    That no-good low-down dirty rat
    Who used to order his troops

    To fire on the women and children
    Imagine that imagine that
    And in the spring of '48
    Mao Tse-tung got quite irate

    And he kicked that old dictator Chiang
    Out of the state of China
    Chiang Kai-shek came down in Formosa
    And they armed the island of Quemoy

    And the shells were flying across the China Sea
    And they turned Formosa into a shoe factory
    Called Taiwan
    And she is different from Cro-Magnon man

    She's different from Anne Boleyn
    She is different from the Rosenbergs
    And from the unknown Jew
    She is different from the unknown Nicaraguan

    Half superstar half victim
    She's a victor star conceptually new
    And she is different from the Dodo
    And from the Kankanbono

    She is different from the Aztec
    And from the Cherokee
    She's everybody's sister
    She's symbolic of our failure

    She's the one in fifty million
    Who can help us to be free
    Because she died on T.V.
    And I grieve for my sister Writer/s: ROGER WATERS
    Publisher: Sentric Music
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 5

  • Dr Ling from UsaShe is fictional and she is real. If you go to a library you’ll observe that Poetry is in the non-fiction category and this is for a good reason. Poetry uses constructed images and characters to tell the truth and inform us by moving the emotions and mind. This is why the Muse is the Sister of Philosophy. Both have the truth as their aim, but approach it by different paths. Wu Ming is real. She is the artistic construction of the Poet to represent the Martyr of China/Taiwan for democratic freedoms against the regime. Rock N Roll is the medium. Her poem honors the real girl in this photograph and those like her who gave their lives in a just cause to remove the evil of this world brick by brick, from the WALL.
  • Bmn from Hisuan, ArgentinaThis song became a hit in Iran after the June 20, 2009 brutal killing of Neda Salehi Agha Soltan, during the 2009 Iranian election protests. The similarity between Waters' song and Neda actually being a "student of philosophy" mentioned first by Komeil Bahmanpour in his Facebook lit and spread the fire.
  • Alienanthropologist from Silver Spring, Md1. She's not fictional. In fact, you can hear her speak on the track.
    2. It's not so much about HER as it is about you and me watching her and then going down to Applebees for the $7.99 steak sizzler or stopping off at Starbucks for a latte. He is ridiculing US for our lack of action in the face of reality.
  • Freddy from Alajuela, OtherThis song refers to the Tiananmen Square massacre which I sadly remember watching "on TV". Waters has done a great job as usual.
  • Shelby from Out Beyond The Wall, KyNo one's commented? Wow. Never heard the song, but the lyrics sound like typical Roger Waters and they sound pretty darn good. Heh.
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Rufus Wainwright

Rufus WainwrightSongwriter Interviews

Rufus Wainwright on "Hallelujah," his album Unfollow The Rules, and getting into his "lyric trance" on 12-hour walks.

Female Singers Of The 90s

Female Singers Of The 90sMusic Quiz

The ladies who ruled the '90s in this quiz.

Tanita Tikaram

Tanita TikaramSongwriter Interviews

When she released her first album in 1988, Tanita became a UK singing sensation at age 19. She talks about her darkly sensual voice and quirky songwriting style.

Cheerleaders In Music Videos

Cheerleaders In Music VideosSong Writing

It started with a bouncy MTV classic. Nirvana and MCR made them scary, then Gwen, Avril and Madonna put on the pom poms.

Rickie Lee Jones

Rickie Lee JonesSongwriter Interviews

Rickie Lee Jones on songwriting, social media, and how she's handling Trump.

Rush: Album by Album - A Conversation With Martin Popoff

Rush: Album by Album - A Conversation With Martin PopoffSong Writing

A talk with Martin Popoff about his latest book on Rush and how he assessed the thousands of albums he reviewed.