I’m a Laurie Anderson fan from a way back when, and I was just listening to some old CDs when, as usual, O Superman gave me chills down the spine.
Laurie Anderson was a New York performance artist not well known outside art circles when this song became an unexpected #2 hit on the UK charts in 1981. Her live concerts were truly performance art pieces, using multi-media and plenty of (at the time) cutting edge electronic gadgetry. (I seem to recall she had a keyboard necktie that she could actually play…)
The song makes me think of dystopian science fiction, with the robot voice and cold, dispassionate lyrics. I just wanted to give you the audio file, but couldn’t figure out how to do that, so here it is via Youtube video. Enjoy!
P.S. A few months back I was surprised to hear this song coming over the PA system in my local grocery store. How perfect is that?