Song of the Week: Born, Never Asked

Laurie Anderson is an interesting character.  A graduate of Barnard College, with a subsequent MFA from Columbia, she became part of the avant garde art and music scene in New York during the 1970s.  Much of her work featured her violin playing, but also lots of experimental electronic effects, found sounds, etc.  She has been together with Lou Reed for many years.

I still remember the first time I heard Big Science in the early 1980s.  It was unlike anything else I had listened to.  Full of catchy tunes and occasionally over-clever lyrics (often in ironic spoken word), it was genuinely fun.  Unsurprisingly, it was subjected to quite a bit of criticism from the "serious" avant garde community as a sell-out.

Does it stand the test of time, thirty years later?  I gave it a listen recently, and found it to be quite enjoyable, though perhaps a little bit quaint.  For myself, I prefer her follow-up, Mr. Heartbreak.  But anyway, here is one of the songs from Big Science, titled Born, Never Asked, which I always found kind of spooky and profound: