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Watching TV Lyrics

Artist: Roger Waters
Album: Amused To Death

We were watching T.V.
Watching T.V.
We were Watching T.V.
Watching T.V.
In Tiananmen Square
Lost my baby there
My yellow rose
In her bloodstained clothes
She was a short order pastry chef
In a Dim Sum dive on the Yangtze tideway
She had shiny hair
She was the daughter of an engineer
Won't you shed a tear
For my yellow rose
My yellow rose
In her bloodstained clothes
She had perfect breasts
She had high hopes
She had almond eyes
She had yellow thighs
She was a student of philosophy
Won't you grieve with me
For my yellow rose
Shed a tear
For her bloodstained clothes
She had shiny hair
She had perfect breasts
She had high hopes
She had almond eyes
She had yellow thighs
She was the daughter of an engineer
So get out your pistols
Get out your stones
Get out your knives
Cut them to the bone
They are the lackeys of the grocer's machine
They built the dark satanic mills
That manufacture hell on earth
They bought the front row seats on Calvary
They are irrelevant to me
But I grieve for my sister
People of China
Do not forget do not forget
The children who died for you
Long live the Republic
Did we do anything after this
I've a feeling we did
We were watching T.V.
Watching T.V.
We were watching T.V.
Watching T.V.
She wore a white bandanna that said
Freedom now
She thought the Great Wall of China
Would come tumbling down
She was a student
Her father was an engineer
Won't you shed a tear
For my yellow rose
My yellow rose
In her bloodstained clothes
Her grandpa fought old Chiang Kai-shek
That no-good low-down dirty rat
Who used to order his troops
To fire on the women and children
Imagine that imagine that
And in the spring of '48
Mao Tse-tung got quite irate
And he kicked that old dictator Chiang
Out of the state of China
Chiang Kai-shek came down in Formosa
And they armed the island of Quemoy
And the shells were flying across the China Sea
And they turned Formosa into a shoe factory
Called Taiwan
And she is different from Cro-Magnon man
She's different from Anne Boleyn
She is different from the Rosenbergs
And from the unknown Jew
She is different from the unknown Nicaraguan
Half superstar half victim
She's a victor star conceptually new
And she is different from the Dodo
And from the Kankanbono
She is different from the Aztec
And from the Cherokee
She's everybody's sister
She's symbolic of our failure
She's the one in fifty million
Who can help us to be free
Because she died on T.V.
And I grieve for my sister

Comments/Interpretations

by shahab on 7/2/2008 5:36am
awesome. made me cry! shedding tears.

by Ratty on 10/2/2008 12:31pm
Who is this song about and why did Roger Waters write this song?

by ctelendil on 10/15/2008 6:57am
I believe the song refers to a protester in Tianenmen Square who Waters saw killed live on television during the protests.

I think his point is that there have been millions of senseless murders and preventable deaths throughout history, but it is easy for us to ignore them because we didn't see them occur. In contrast, this woman was killed on television, and her death should move us to take action.

by Carly on 2/27/2009 4:04am
I think Rogers point is that we only cared about the death of the girl who died on tv because she was pleasing to the eye, as he states about her perfect breasts and tiny hair. It is due to the shallowness of humans that we tend to synthesize for "good looking" people over "less" attractive people.

Hundreds died in the massacre in Tianenman square but the only person that the world seemed to care about was the girl with shiny hair who died on tv

by alvite on 4/10/2009 6:06am
no comparison with the songs of roger waters....they r one of its kind..peace waters......

by Prabhjyot on 4/18/2009 11:14pm
On the Top - Nothing like Water's compositions.They just rock.

by tom on 8/15/2010 12:14am
Roger's song gives a life setting, a family lineage, and voice to one of the many humans killed during the crackdown. For the Tiananmen protesters or the man who stood in front of the tanks to do what they did took incredible courage and spirit. Wish I could have met them.

by The Reality Project on 8/16/2011 12:35am
It's a great song, like many of Waters', but like many of his songs it's also very inaccurate. He bizarrely glorifies Chairman Mao (whose murderous 'reforms' caused the deaths of millions of students and intellectuals, and whose hardliners were the ones who cracked down on the Tianmen protesters) and singles out Chiang Kai-Shek as a 'dirty rat' when the Nationalist Army was far less brutal than the communist.

Waters is hard to take as you get older, because the songs are still powerful. But then you realize that he's singing lies, or that he's basically saying (like "When the Tygers Broke Free") that he'd rather have his dad alive than have Nazism defeated. Bit selfish, innit?

by tentonz on 6/8/2012 4:07am
Awesome song by an absolute musical genius, but Reality Project, dont ya think Rog could have been assuming the opinion of the girl's grandpa, i thinks mao and chiang hai-shek are made out to be as bad as each other- war hungry megalomaniacs. As a side note, kankanbono as mentioned are a tribe dicussed in Galapagos, a fictional work by Kurt Vonnegut... who happens to be one of my favorite authors.... kind of like Roger in a way. So if you like Roger, try reading Kurt.

by kornelik on 1/11/2013 9:17pm
Just perfect nothing to add. Awsome, hope my daughter will love it.

by Giorgio on 6/22/2013 3:03am
Obviously refers to the student revolt in Tiennammen square where many lost their lives. Students fought for the freedom of many while at a distance, in comfort and indifference some just "watch the TV". Waters is obsessed by man's thirst of power and indifference to human sufference. The almond eyed girl is just the symbol of human folly and indifference. Very pertinent to Floyd's "The Final Cut". Brilliant and touching.

by shai hulud on 9/23/2013 12:38pm
the reality project...you are just like reality tv: fucking stupid...

by mark leslie on 1/29/2014 2:48am
It's is easy to see why Roger Waters amused to death did not get the air time and recognition he deserves as there is far too much truth in his lyrics that do not suet a lot of country's agendas .but don't be afraid it's only what God wants so we are told.time to put religion in the bin and rid people of it's opium addictions that the governments uses for ill gain when it suits them and the people follow with blind faith and call them sheep

by nescio on 3/22/2015 7:36am
blwicky? semsimanta bel pricsmo!