Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Say Hello
2. Walk The Dog
3. Violin Solo
4. Closed Circuits (For Voice And Amplified Mic Stand)
5. For A Large And Changing Room
6. Pictures Of It (For Acoustic Tape Bow)
7. The Language Of The Future
8. Cartoon Song
9. Small Voice (For Speaker-In-Mouth)
10. Three Walking Songs (For Tape Bow Violin)
11. The Healing Horn
12. New Jersey Turnpike
13. So Happy Birthday
14. EngliSH
15. Dance Of Electricity
16. Three Songs For Paper, Film And Video

Disc 2:

1. Sax Solo (For Tape Bow Violin)
2. Sax Duet
3. Born, Never Asked
4. From The Air
5. Beginning French
6. O Superman
7. Talkshow
8. Frames For The Pictures
9. Democratic Way
10. Looking For You
11. Walking And Falling
12. Private Property
13. Neon Duet (For Violin And Neon Bow)
14. Let X=X
15. The Mailman's Nightmare
16. Difficult Listening Hour
17. Language Is A Virus From Outer Space
18. Reverb
19. If You Can't Talk About It, Point To It (For Ludwig Wittgenstein And Reverend Ike)
20. Violin Walk
21. City Song
22. Finnish Farmers

Disc 3:

1. Red Map
2. Hey Ah
3. Bagpipe Solo
4. Steven Weed
5. Time And A Half
6. Voices On Tape
7. Example #22
8. Strike
9. False Documents
10. New York Social Life
11. A Curious Phenomenon
12. Yankee See
13. I Dreamed I Had To Take A Test...
14. Running Dogs
15. Four, Three, Two, One
16. The Big Top
17. It Was Up In The Mountains
18. Odd Objects (For Light-In-Mouth)
19. Dr. Miller
20. Big Science
21. Big Science Reprise

Disc 4:

1. Cello Solo
2. It Tango
3. Blue Lagoon
4. Hothead (La Langue D'Amour)
5. Stiff Neck
6. Telephone Song
7. Sweaters
8. We've Got Four Big Clocks (And They're All Ticking)
9. Song For Two Jims
10. Over The River
11. Mach 20
12. Rising Sun
13. The Visitors
14. The Stranger
15. Classified
16. Going Somewhere?
17. Fireworks
18. Dog Show
19. Lighting Out For The Territories

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #76169 in Music
• Released on: 1993-10-01
• Number of discs: 4
• Formats: Best of, Box set, Live

From Amazon.com
For most musicians and groups, the live box set marks the culmination of a lengthy recording and concert career. Not so for Laurie Anderson, whose United States Live appeared in 1984, following her tenure in academic and bohemian circles and a small handful of releases on Warner Bros. and smaller labels. The release was an unusual event, though perhaps less so for a musician who seeks to upend musical traditions, most notably the distinctions between pop and classical, spoken and sung, live and Memorex. The lengthy set is a recording of a live performance composed of dozens of carefully defined experiments in form and technique, most of them fitting into one or two of these three categories: show pieces for items from her technological music arsenal (like her emblematic electric violin), witty narrative snippets (back when "spoken word" was called "performance art," prior to the rise of the poetry slam), and full-band performances, featuring, among others, Peter Gordon and David Van Tieghem. "O Superman" and "Big Science" are the familiar titles that appear amid the nearly 80 tracks. "Just a slow accumulation of details," her computer-enhanced voice intones moments before the intro to "Blue Lagoon" (later heard in a studio version on Mister Heartbreak). That makes a nice epigram for the collection as a whole, which is essential to understanding art music of the '80s in general and the New York scene in particular. --Marc Weidenbaum