[ music: Robert Buck/words: Natalie Merchant ]



How did they teach you to be just a happy puppet dancing on a string?
How did you learn everything that comes along with slavish funnery?
Tell me something, if the world is so insane,
is it making you sane again to let another man tug at the thread that pulls up your nodding head?

How did they teach you to be just a happy puppet dancing on a string?
How do you manage to live inside this tiny stage you can't leave?
Tell me something, if the world is so insane,
is it making you sane again to let another man tug at the thread that pulls up your nodding head?

A dullard strung on the wire.
When the master's gone you hang there with your eyes and your limbs so lifeless.

How did they teach you to be just a happy puppet dancing on a string?
How do you manage to speak, your mouth a frozen grin?

A dullard strung on the wire.
When the master's gone you hang there with your eyes and your limbs so lifeless.

Tell me something, if the world is so insane,
is it making you sane again to let another man tug at the thread that pulls up your empty wooden head?

Your hollow head, your marble eyes, your wooden hands and your metal jaw pins
all wait in limbo for the man who knows how to move you this way.