Storm Lyrics - Singles - Tim Minchin

In a North London, top floor flat 

All white walls, white carpet, white cat, 

Rice Paper partitions 

Modern art and ambition 

The host's a physician, 

Bright bloke, has his own practice 

His girlfriend's an actress 

An old mate of ours from home 

And they're always great fun 

So to dinner we've come. 

The fifth guest is an unknown, 

The hosts have just thrown 

Us together for a favor 

because this girls just arrived from Australia 

And she's moved to North London 

And she's the sister of someone 

Or has some connection. 

As we make introductions 

I'm struck by her beauty 

She's irrefutably fair 

With dark eyes and dark hair 

But as she sits 

I admit I'm a little bit wary 

because I notice the tip of the wing of a fairy 

Tattooed on that popular area 

Just above the derrire 

And when she says Im Sagittarian 

I confess a pigeonhole starts to form 

And is immediately filled with pigeon 

When she says her name is Storm. 

Conversation is initially bright and light-hearted 

But it's not long before Storm gets started: 

You cant know anything, 

Knowledge is merely opinion 

She opines, over her Cabernet Sauvignon 

Vis--vis, 

Some un-hippily 

Empirical comment made by me 

Not a good start I think 

We're only on pre-dinner drinks 

And across the room, my wife 

Widens her eyes 

Silently begs me, Be Nice 

A matrimonial warning 

Not worth ignoring 

So I resist the urge to ask Storm 

Whether knowledge is so loose-weave 

Of a morning 

When deciding whether to leave 

Her apartment by the front door 

Or a window on the second floor. 

The food is delicious and Storm, 

Whilst avoiding all meat, 

Happily sits and eats 

As the good doctor, slightly pissedly 

Holds court on some anachronistic aspect of medical history 

When Storm suddenly insists 

But the human body is a mystery! 

Science just falls in a hole 

When it tries to explain the the nature of the soul. 

My hostess throws me a glance 

She, like my wife, knows there's a chance 

That I'll be off on one of my rare but fun rants 

But I shan't , my lips are sealed. 

I just want to enjoy my meal 

And although Storm is starting to get my goat 

I have no intention of rocking the boat, 

Although it's becoming a bit of a wrestle 

Because -- like her meteorological namesake - 

Storm has no such concerns for our vessel: 

Pharmaceutical companies are the enemy 

They promote drug dependency 

At the cost of the natural remedies 

That are all our bodies need 

They are immoral and driven by greed. 

Why take drugs 

When herbs can solve it? 

Why use chemicals 

When homeopathic solvents 

Can resolve it? 

I think it's time we all return-to-live 

With natural medical alternatives. 

And try as I like, 

A small crack appears 

In my diplomacy-dike. 

By definition, I begin 

Alternative Medicine, I continue, 

Has either not been proved to work, 

Or been proved not to work. 

Do you know what they call alternative medicine 

That's been proved to work? 

Medicine. 

So you don't believe 

In ANY Natural remedies? 

On the contrary, Storm, actually: 

Before I came to tea, 

I took a natural remedy 

Derived from the bark of a willow tree 

A painkiller that's virtually side-effect free. 

Its got a weird name, 

Darling, what was it again? 

Maspirin? 

Baspirin? 

Aspirin! 

Which I paid about a buck for 

Down at the local drugstore. 

The debate briefly abates 

As my hosts collects plates 

but when they return with desserts 

Storm pertly asserts, 

Shakespeare said it first: 

''There are more things in heaven and earth 

Than exist in your philosophy'' 

Science is just how were trained to look at reality, 

It doesn't explain love or spirituality. 

How does science explain psychics? 

Auras; the afterlife; the power of prayer? 

I'm becoming aware 

That I'm staring, 

I'm like a rabbit suddenly trapped 

In the blinding headlights of vacuous crap. 

Maybe it's the Hamlet she just mis-quothed 

Or the fifth glass of wine I just quaffed 

But my diplomacy dike groans 

And the arsehole held back by its stones 

Can be held back no more: 

Look , Storm, I don't mean to bore you 

But there's no such thing as an aura! 

Reading Auras is like reading minds 

Or tea-leaves or star-signs or meridian lines 

These people aren't plying a skill, 

They are either lying or mentally ill. 

Same goes for people who claim to hear Gods demands 

Or Spiritual healers who think they've got magic hands. 

By the way, 

Why is it OK 

For people to pretend they can talk to the dead? 

Isn't that totally fucked in the head 

Lying to some crying woman whose child has died 

And telling her you're in touch with the other side? 

I think that's fundamentally sick 

Do we need to clarify that there's no such thing as a psychic? 

What, are we fucking 2? 

Do we actually think that Horton Heard a Who? 

Do we still think that Santa brings us gifts? 

That Michael Jackson didn't have face lifts? 

Are we still so stunned by circus tricks 

That we think that the dead would 

Wanna talk to pricks 

Like John Edward? 

Storm to her credit despite my derision 

Keeps firing off clichés with startling precision 

Like a sniper using bollocks for ammunition 

You're so sure of your position 

But you're just closed-minded 

I think you'll find 

Your faith in Science and Tests 

Is just as blind 

As the faith of any fundamentalist. 

"Wow, that's a good point, let me think for a bit" 

Oh wait, my mistake, its absolute bullshit. 

Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed 

Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved. 

If you show me 

That, say, homeopathy works, 

Then I will change my mind 

I will spin on a fucking dime 

I'll be embarrassed as hell, 

But I will run through the streets yelling 

Its a miracle! Take physics and bin it! 

Water has memory! 

And while it's memory of a long lost drop of onion juice is Infinite 

It somehow forgets all the poo its had in it! 

You show me that it works and how it works 

And when I've recovered from the shock 

I will take a compass and carve 'Fancy That' on the side of my cock. 

Everyone's just staring now, 

But I'm pretty pissed and Ive dug this far down, 

So I figure, in for penny, in for a pound: 

Life is full of mysteries, yeah, 

But there are answers out there 

And they won't be found 

By people sitting around 

Looking serious 

And saying isn't life mysterious? 

Let's sit here and hope 

Let's call up the fucking Pope 

Let's go watch Oprah 

Interview Deepak Chopra 

If wanna watch tele, you should watch Scooby Doo. 

That show was so cool 

because every time there was a church with a ghoul 

Or a ghost in a school 

They looked beneath the mask and what was inside? 

The fucking janitor or the dude who ran the water-slide. 

Because throughout history 

Every mystery 

EVER solved has turned out to be 

Not Magic. 

Does the idea that there might be knowledge 

Frighten you? 

Does the idea that one afternoon 

On Wiki-fucking-pedia might enlighten you 

Frighten you? 

Does the notion that there may not be a supernatural 

So blow your hippy noodle 

That you'd rather just stand in the fog 

Of your inability to Google? 

Isn't this enough? 

Just this world? 

Just this beautiful, complex 

Wonderfully unfathomable, natural world? 

How does it so fail to hold our attention 

That we have to diminish it with the invention 

Of cheap, man-made Myths and Monsters? 

If you're so into Shakespeare 

Lend me your ear: 

''To gild refined gold, 

to paint the lily, 

To throw perfume on the violet 

is just fucking silly'' 

Or something like that. 

Or what about Satchmo?! 

I see trees of Green, 

Red roses too, 

And fine, if you wish to 

Glorify Krishna and Vishnu 

In a post-colonial, condescending 

Bottled-up and labelled kind of way 

Then whatever, that's okay. 

But here's what gives me a hard-on: 

I am a tiny, insignificant, ignorant bit of carbon. 

I have one life, and it is short and unimportant 

But thanks to recent scientific advances 

I get to live twice as long as my great great great great uncles-es and aunts-es. 

Twice as long to live this life of mine 

Twice as long to love this wife of mine 

Twice as many years of friends and wine 

Of sharing curries and getting shitty 

At good-looking hippies 

With fairies on their spines 

And butterflies on their titties. 

And if perchance I have offended 

Think but this and all is mended: 

We'd as well be 10 minutes back in time, 

For all the chance you'll change your mind.