Ninety-nine.
I’d like to tell you a story about a friend of mine
He is almost human and his number’s ninety-nine.
He’s a perfect android he does everything
With the latest TV eyes and polyvinyl skin.
Holograms for memories a million million K
Of analogue processors emulate his brain.
He cleans the home and drives the car
And cooks just like a dream
Speaks a hundred languages, the ultimate machine.
Then one day I went to work but when I returned home
There was no sign of ninety-nine just a note by the phone.
‘Dear Jim I’ve left for a rebel robot camp
A cybernetic city in a factory underground.
They’ll give me nylon organs and electronic glands
Reprogram my metal brain to think that I’m a man.
Then I’ll find a human wife we’ll never meet again’.
Ninety-nine has hid himself within a human frame.
I never bought another from General Butlers Inc.
I prefer a Hoover the type that doesn’t think.
As years go by life is strange
I am looking older but my neighbours haven’t aged.
A blackbird sitting on my fence burst into flames
Then one night I caught the cat plugged into the mains.
I have the oddest feeling; I cannot put a name,
To this hidden fear that things aren’t quite the same.
