This is the fifth track off of King Crimson’s ninth studio album, Beat.
“Neurotica” shares its title with Neurotica, a Beat-era magazine. The Frippertronics intro is lifted directly from the beginning of “Hååden Two” off Fripps' 1979 solo album Exposure.
[Verse 1]
Good morning, it's 3am
In this great, roaring city full of garbage eaters
Ravaging parking spots beneath my plaza window
I see cheetah in their tight skins and tired heels
All-night hippo in the diner crossing the street
Swarthy herds of young impala flambastic gibbon
Even a struggling monza
And over there, that brilliant head ornament
On that Japanese macaque
But look closely at the hammerhead
Hand in hand with the mandrill
It's a sight you're unlikely to see anywhere else on the planet
[Verse 2]
The stench and the noise, yes, yes
The howlers resonating repertoire is not too bad
When mixed with the more musical twern of the tropical warbler
But the impatient taxi blare, the squawking elderly ibis
And the glass-eye snapper hawking papers
I can certainly live without
Also be cautious of the poisonous boomslang laughter
Social droppings of the fruit bat and purple queen fish
And who's that babbler conversing with a magazine stand?
Evidently, he's getting a good reply
[Refrain]
Arrive in Neurotica through neon heat disease
I swear at the swarming herds, I sweat the foul terrain
I rove the moving scenery
[Refrain]
Arrive in Neurotica through neon heat disease
I swear at the swarming herds, I sweat the foul terrain
I rove the moving scenery
[Bridge]
I have no fin, no wing, no stinger
No claw, no camouflage, I have no more to say
[Verse 3]
Say! Isn't that an elephant fish on the corner over there?
Look at that bush baby, mud puppy
Noolbenger, rhinoderma, marmoset, spring peeper
Shingleback skink, siren skate
Starling star-gazer spoonbill and suckers
They seem to be everywhere, well it's a live revue
Random animal parts: now playing nightly right here in Neurotica
So long!
Neurotica was written by Bill Bruford & Tony Levin & Robert Fripp & Adrian Belew.
Neurotica was produced by Rhett Davies.
King Crimson released Neurotica on Fri Jun 18 1982.