Richard Hell and the Voidoids – Blank Generation

(p.s. it's just a clip)

There is a big nostalgic story about where I was and who I was when I first heard this song. It was in front of a tv, kind of like I am right now, minus the parents arguing upstairs. But as I watched the round-up of the first three episodes of "Seven Ages of Rock and Roll" on VH1 Classic I got to see Richard Hell read this like poetry and it made me do the RCA puppy head tilt in sheer awe.

Blank Generation
(Hell)
I was sayin' let me outta here before I was even born,
It's such a gamble when you get a face,
It's fascinatin' to observe what the mirror does,
But when I dine it's for the wall that I set a place.

I belong to the blank generation,
And I can take it or leave it each time.
I belong to the generation,
But I can take it or leave it each time.

Triangles were fallin' at the window as the doctor cursed,
He was a cartoon long forsaken by the public eye,
The nurse adjusted her garters as I breathed my first,
The doctor grabbed my throat and yelled, "God's consolation prize!"

I belong to the blank generation,
And I can take it or leave it each time.
I belong to the generation,
But I can take it or leave it each time.

To hold the TV to my lips, the air so packed with cash,
Then carry it up flights of stairs and drop it in the vacant lot,
To lose my train of thought and fall into your arms tracks,
And watch beneath the eyelids every passing dot

I belong to the blank generation,
And I can take it or leave it each time.
I belong to the generation,
But I can take it or leave it each time.

You shoulda been there.