Work Text:
We’ll never play this town again
If our sound is dead
Someday we’ll get our record deal
Handshakes and cylinder seals
We had the gig of all gigs
The opening act at the Uruk
We never played the big time before
Now we’re on the Summer Sumer Tour
The Mesopotamians carved in stone
The closest thing to billboards (if there were billboards)
Big black stones in the center of town
And fliers in clay scattered all on the ground
The Mesopotamians are the Opening Act
For Inanna and her big boy band
We never played the big time before
Now we’re opening act of opening night
On the sold-out Summer Sumer Tour
She’s on the cover of all the magazines
And every trashy tabloid scene
Late night talk shows
She’s a Goddess
She’s a Star
She’s hot and steamy
Always the center
Of the latest controversy
We roll up to the backstage door
Boy toys hanging on her arm
Bling and pearls around her neck
And she’s fighting with the stage manager
Again
We enter by the stage door
Make our way to the dressing rooms
They’re down the stairs
Down dark dark stairs
And no one but musicians go down there
Dressing rooms for has-beens
From years gone by
We should have stayed in the van
Maybe some Erudites from Eridu
Maybe backup singers with nothing left to do.
And she’s got catering for her entourage
We hear them through paper-thin walls
She’s got the dressing room next door
And we listen in
On the Summer Sumer Tour
The stage manager is Ereshkigal
She calls her up and tells her
The tour may be off
the audience is gone
But she’ll let you know when it’s time to go on
On the Summer Sumer Tour