Beginning French

Beginning French - Laurie Anderson

I've been doing a lot of concerts in French

Unfortunately I don't speak French

I memorize it

I mean my mouth is moving but

I don't really understand what I'm saying

It's like sitting at the breakfast table

And it's early in the morning and you're not quite awake

And you're just sitting there eating cereal

And sort of staring at the writing on the box

And not reading it exactly

Just more or less looking at the words

And suddenly for some reason you snap to attention

And you realize that what

You're reading is what you're eating

But by then it's much too late

After doing these concerts in French

I usually had the temporary illusion that

I could actually speak French

But as soon as I walked out on the street

And someone asked me simple directions

I realized I couldn't speak a single word

So as a result of this inadequacy

I found that the people

I had the most rapport with were the babies

And one of the things I noticed about

These babies was that they were apparently being used

As some kind of traffic testers

Their mothers would be

Pushing them along in their strollers

And they would come to a busy

Street with lots of parked cars

And the mother can't see what the traffic

Is like because of all the parked cars

So she just sort of edges the stroller out

Into the street and cranes her head out afterwards

And the most striking thing about this

Is the expression on these babies' faces

As they sit there in the middle of traffic stranded

Banging those little gavels they've all got

And they can't even speak English

Do you know what I mean