Buckethead

Now back in the real world, life, carbon was too expensive
No one could afford to live, go out or travel and the world was too scary
Fifteen years ago the book "Snow Crash" predicted the underclass would have to live out their lives, trapped in a tiny room with full head monitors on
Leading a second life wired to a computer generated world

We can make it safe out there in the meat-space
Next stop paradise, it's a brave new world
Said the avatars of dredd, you're as good as dead
With the needle in the red, with a bucket on your head

In their bucket homes with equal opportunity
It's a wired thing, twenty million zombies
They dream of dream estate in their utopian state
And all the hip were signed, hooked and now on-line

So where is my friend, well, he's at home
With a bucket stuck on his head
So where is my friend, he's all alone
Walking with the living dead

Amazingly, the second life, the world started to mirror the old world
Where the quality of life and social interactions were again dictated by your wealth
Only the rich could be fully rendered in 3D colour, get in the VIP areas
The poor people realised they existed only as black and white outlines

Everyone imagined no outline was normal
So when a 3D colour and the order is restored at last
In an equal world even for young girls
VIP walk by and never questioned why

So where is my friend, well, he's at home
With a bucket stuck on his head
So where is my friend, well, he's all alone
Walking with the living dead

The money wheel had turned and the harmony, peace and order was restored to the world
Everything is rendered, everything is programmed, everybody is happy in the perfect second life
Safe and pixel-tight, right down to byte
In their prison cell with a silicone to hell

Oh, where is my friend, well, he's at home
With a bucket stuck on his head
So where is my friend, he's all alone
Walking with the living dead

In reality the government had the whole population controlled
Trapped in their rooms, fuelled on vitamin added up pizzas
Not bothered by the real world events
Control not by force of law but addiction to computer, silicon and the code that they wrote

Where is my friend, well, he's not at home
With a bucket stuck on his head
So where is my friend, he's all alone
Walking with the living dead

Now everyone stays in and the rich have all the space
I still have hope that giant carbon feet
Guess who's in control with no place for your soul
Somewhere in the trash will cause the snow to crash

Where is my friend, well, he's not at home
With bucket stuck on his head
So where is my friend, he's all alone
Walking with the living dead

And meanwhile the rich road about in horses and carriages through the empty streets
And the poor stayed in their towerpods in bucketworld

So where is my friend, well, he's not at home
With a bucket stuck on his head
So where is my friend, he's all alone
Walking with the living dead

The whole population slipped a bucket on their head
There was no more revolution, they spent the day in bed
And the whole population slipped a bucket on their head
There was no revolution, they spent the day in bed

Welcome hyped or hoped or is this liberation
Control or in control or isolation
Welcome hyped or hoped or is this liberation
Control or con control or isolation

Where is my friend, well, he's not at home
With a bucket stuck on his head
So where is my friend, he's all alone
Walking with the living dead

The use of needles walking with the living dead
Plays on the addiction analogy that the concept suggets
That the normal world population
Will become hooked on living in cyber world

So where is my friend, well, he's at home
With a bucket stuck on his head
So where is my friend, he's all alone
Walking with the living dead
Here they come

The chorus use of my friend part personalises the song
To counteract the rather geekiness of the verses
And to keep within the rock 'n' roll area
And so it seems mind control is the new rock 'n' roll
And it's happening now!

Where is my friend, well, he's at home
With a bucket stuck on his head
So where is my friend, he's all alone
Walking with the living dead

Where is my friend, well, he's not at home
With a bucket stuck on his head
So where is my friend, he's all alone
Walking with the living dead