Lyrics It Was Up In the Mountains - Laurie Anderson

It was up in the mountains
We had this ceremony every year
We had it and everyone from miles around came in for it
Cousins, aunts, uncles, and the kids
Grandmothers, grandfathers everyone
And we set it up around this big natural pool
With pine trees and palm trees
All the trees were there
And we had thousands of those big urns
You know the kind
And everyone would dance and sing
And it lasted for three days
Everyone cooked and looked forward to it all the year
Well, one year, we were in the middle of it
And I was just a boy at the time
Anyway, it was evening, and suddenly
A whole lot of tigers came in
I don't know where they came from
They rushed in, snarling
And knocked over all the urns
And it was really a mess
Well, we spent the whole
Next year rebuilding everything
But in the middle of the ceremony
The next time the same thing happened
These tigers rushed in again and broke everything
And then went back into the mountains
This must have gone on four or five years
This way rebuilding and then the tigers would come
And break everything, we were getting used to it
Finally we had a meeting and decided
To make these tigers part of the ceremony
You know to expect them
We began to put food in the urns
So the tigers would have something to eat
Not much at first crackers, things like that
Then later we put more food until finally
We were saving our food all year for the tigers
Then one year, the tigers didn't come
They never came back