LOOK (TIME)



performed on:
The replacement for "Laboratory" in the setlist on the Science Tour was this trance-like production written and sung by Christina Singleton. As immediately as "Laboratory" had been embraced by the fan base, "Look (Time)" was disowned and universally despised. It managed to garner up some support by the end of the tour but remained an unpopular song. After Singleton left the band, it ironically became one of the songs on the album that followed, CHILD, in a delicate, pretty arrangement that was considerably more well-liked by fans, though many of them were stunned when it was announced as one of the included tracks. It is the last solo contribution by Tina Singleton to a Plaastik album.

The song has a lengthy history. Written in 1999 (the demo is dated November), making it the oldest song on CHILD, it was shelved during work on SCIENCE because it could not be made to conform with the self-imposed style regulations of that album (that as little new recording as possible would be done). Tina's demo is a slow and hearfelt song with introspective lyrics; during Science tour rehearsals, the song mutated into an electronica raveup with oblique lyrics and robotic vocals, an example in the minds of many of exactly what was wrong with much of the SCIENCE-era material.

"This and 'The Rooms' were what almost broke the band up," Parker remembered in 2005. Tina wanted those two songs to be the centerpiece of the epic followup to SCIENCE; she spent weeks mixing this song in the original recorded performance, made in the spring of 2003 after the band had tried to coax her into returning the more conservative arrangement of the pre-SCIENCE variation. Tina fought bitterly the rest of the band's pulling of the song into "Walking Distance" territory, and she continued to do so even a year after she' dleft the band. The inclusion of the song was hotly debated until the final hour; she agreed to allow Plaastik's preferred version on the record days before the album was pressed, though exact circumstances of their negotiations are unknown. The album version of the song is a hybrid; it fuses one of the first and most basic rough tracks of the song laid down in December 2002 with Tina's 1999 lead vocal with the original lyrics from her (unusable) demo tape, making "Look (Time)" the second of the three Tina-era performances on CHILD.

For all the arguments and changes, "Look (Time)" remains close to Tina's intentions but is still nearly unrecognizable from the Science tour version. It remains an ambient track (predominately bass, reverb, and feedback, with the vocals coming off slightly jazzy) but with a warmth recalling SALT or OLIVES & SUCH.


yeah i miss all that seemed so bad once
i lost touch with that part of me
i remember bending over, over the counter
five feet high over my head but
look how the time has passed away
yeah yeah
i said look how the time has passed away
feel so much older than them

water water everywhere no place to go
stuck over in the corner with people I don't know
never spent this much time in the grocery store
but looking back now it doesn't feel like such a bore
because i just
look at how the time has passed away
oh fuck honey
why don't you
look at how the time has passed away
i feel so much older than them

fury
death
rage
blood
loneliness
we feel it all the time
time
time
time

there's one more new thing to say
and then not another word
I'm leaving secrets here that you won't see
there was the time I saw her sprawled on the grass
i did what I shouldn't and I did what I had to
she doesn't seem the same now
neither does he
look at the time that's passed away
i can't help it
i feel so much older now
look at how the time has passed away

i'll remember forever, baby
the way
you came
for me.

[original lyrics from SCIENCE tour:]
Water water everywhere hand me a towel
Pat Sajak spin the wheel and I'd like to buy a vowel
Easy listening music in the grocery store
Hey change the station it's becoming a bore

Fury death rage blood loneliness
Look how the time has passed away

I shot the bluebird of happiness
With a BB gun from the Dollar Tree
He was pronounced dead at the scene
Everyone's depressed because of me

And I like it, baby
Look how the time has passed away