Hello, how are you? Lyrics
This fear of being what they are:
Dead
At least they are not out on the street, they
Are careful to stay indoors, those
Pasty mad who sit alone before their tv sets
Their lives full of canned, mutilated laughter
Their ideal neighborhood
Of parked cars
Of little green lawns
Of little homes
The little doors that open and close
As their relatives visit
Throughout the holidays
The doors closing
Behind the dying who die so slowly
Behind the dead who are still alive
In your quiet average neighborhood
Of winding streets
Of agony
Of confusion
Of horror
Of fear
Of ignorance
Dead
At least they are not out on the street, they
Are careful to stay indoors, those
Pasty mad who sit alone before their tv sets
Their lives full of canned, mutilated laughter
Their ideal neighborhood
Of parked cars
Of little green lawns
Of little homes
The little doors that open and close
As their relatives visit
Throughout the holidays
The doors closing
Behind the dying who die so slowly
Behind the dead who are still alive
In your quiet average neighborhood
Of winding streets
Of agony
Of confusion
Of horror
Of fear
Of ignorance
About
Genius Annotation
The poem suggests, through using motifs to suburbia, that a life that is so carefully structured is one that might as well be considered as a death. This interpretation is furthered through the poem’s title, “Hello, how are you?”, which is a relatively common, if not redundant, question asked each day. The question is posed, more often than not, out of an attempt to be polite , rather than actual concern. Essentially, what both the poem and its title convey is that a lack of passion or feeling whilst living is the death of a person while they are technically still alive.
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