YOU



performed on:
The first four minutes of this true oddity consist of a miserable tuneup of the jazz players, slowly fading in before growing to an unbearable volume. Finally all goes quiet, the drumsticks are tapped, and all the instruments hit a single note at the same time and hold it for thirty seconds, then everyone goes nuts and Nick starts talking, in a heavily processed voice. At nine minutes, this made for a maddening track to open the album, but the actual chorus is so catchy that even Epic admitted it to its imposed tracklist. The song was released as a single and miraculously became a top-40 hit -- a nice electric guitar overdub was added and the first few minutes were removed. The video features Nick lip-syncing to a different, unidentified song in front of gigantic letters spelling "YOU." The song was drastically rearranged on the 1994 and 2001 tours.


You are an optimist. You are a pessimist.
Check your spelling and you will have a better image.
Adjust the personal hygeine of the sheep in the fields.
Walk through the fields, watching the horses go about their daily business.
Conceive a preview of the coming attractions.
Now open the newest of your masterpieces.

Stop. Stop! Stop it, you! You! YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU!

You want to be a painter. You want to write the Great American Novel.
You want to design software. You want to play guitar and sing.
But all you can do is flip burgers and capture stray dogs.
You are a useless person. But you're happy. You do not own any corporations.
You do not watch the stockmarket. You are unimportant and irrelevant.
Everyone is indifferent to you or unaware of your existence.
You don't care, because you're happy. You ridiculous fool.
I tire of your shenanigans, and so I will move on.

Stop. Stop! Stop it, you! You! YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU!

There is no end to the possibilities you may acheive after receiving additional education at our university.
We teach you nothing, and care not about you about a person.
We torture you via boredom and take your money then give you a paper.
This paper is the key to life. As an alternative, you may wish to join the army.
It is a job with many rewards as well as exotic locations, where you meet lots of interesting people and kill them.
The sky is blood red, many lives are lost, you are wounded, body contaminated, but you have proven your courage.
Those who died, they also have proven their courage. Doesn't matter much now, though, does it? Ha ha ha!
You are the one that matters. You survived. You will return to your country and shake hands with the politicians.
You will receive the metals, sign the autographs and appear on the talk shows. They want to meet people.
You killed people. You and the others, you all killed people. That is good.
You have done an excellent job.
You love your country, you love your president, you love the soldiers who died, but you don't love them at all.
You love the spotlight. You love the attention.
You're glad that your buddies were killed, because that left you for the spotlight.
Now you have an image and they all love you. You disgust me.

Stop. Stop! Stop it, you! You! YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU!

I talk about you far too much. Let's talk about me.
I am a wonderful person who owns all of the companies and controls the stockmarket.
I wrote a book about it. I also possess some degree of creativity. I paint pictures of the sheep in the field.
I often sing to myself, then I realize how ridiculous I must look to anyone that might be watching so I stop myself.
I also hate you. You are the type of person I hate. You think you're special.
You're not special; I've seen your kind many times. It is the standard design.
You were hanging around in the back yard videotaping the trash can.

It's all about you, isn't it?