Lyrics to
Plastic Pattern People

This version of Plastic Pattern People was released by Gil Scott-Heron in 1970.

Visit the Gil Scott-Heron Lyrics profile at Decade Lyrics - it has the Plastic Pattern People lyrics as well as the rest of the songs by Gil Scott-Heron.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to Gil Scott-Heron or about the 1970s in general.

Glad to get high and see the slow motion world.
Just to reach, and touch, the half notes floating.
Worlds spinning orbit quicker than 9/8ths Dave Brubeck.
We come now, frantically searching for Thomas Moore, rainbow villages.
Up on suddenly, Charlie Mingus and our man Abdul Malik,
to add bass, to a bottomless pit of insecurity.

You may be plastic because you never meditate,
about the bottom of glasses, The third side of your universe.

Add on Alice Coltrane and her cosmic strains.
Still no vocal on blue black horizons.

Your plasticity is tested by a formless assault.
The sun can answer questions in tune, to all your sacrifices.
But why would our new jazz age give us no more mind expanding puzzles?

Enter John.

Blow from under, always, and never, so that the morning, the sun,
may scream of brain bending saxophones.

The third world arrives, with Yusef Lateef, and Pharaoh Saunders.
With oboes straining to touch the core of your unknown soul.
Ravi Shankar comes, with strings attached, prepared to stabilize your seventh sense,
Your black rhythm.

Up and down a silly ladder run the notes, without the words.
Words are important for the mind, but the notes are for the soul.
Miles Davis, So what?
Cannonball, Fiddler, Mercy.
Dexter Gordon, One Flight Up.
Donald Byrd, playing Cristo, but what about words?

Would you like to survive on sadness? Call on Ella and Jose Happiness.
Drift with Smokey, Bill Medley, Bobby Taylor, and Otis Redding.
Soul music where frustrations are washed by drums, Nina and Miriam.

Congo, Mongo, Beat me, senseless, bongo, Tonto.
Flash through dream worlds of STP and LSD.
Speed kills and sometimes musics call, is frustrated.
And the black man is confused.

Our speed is our life pace, much too fast, not good.
I beg you to escape, and live, and hear all of the real.
Until a call comes for you to cry elsewhere.
We must all cry, but tell me.

Must our tears be white?

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Want more lyrics and songs by Gil Scott-Heron?

Gil Scott-Heron has released many songs over the years besides Plastic Pattern People. Gil Scott-Heron released songs from 1970 to 2005 spanning across albums like Small Talk At 125th And Lenox, Pieces Of A Man, Free Will, Winter In America, The First Minute Of A New Day, It's Your World, From South Africa To South Carolina, Bridges, Secrets, The Mind Of Gil Scott-Heron, 1980, Real Eyes, Reflections, Moving Target, Spirits, and Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson - Messages (Anthology). Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Gil Scott-Heron.

If you're a fan of popular 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1970 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Plastic Pattern People by Gil Scott-Heron

The lyrics for Plastic Pattern People are defined as the words making up the song released by Gil Scott-Heron in 1970. It also includes the verses and words used by the background chorus in the song. Like many hit songs, the lyrics to Plastic Pattern People have different meanings to different people. While it is clear in some of the lyrics what the artist is trying to really say, only Gil Scott-Heron and those working with them know all of the meanings behind all of the lyrics to their songs.

Some folks are interested in word and phrase etymology. It is easy to understand the lyrics to Plastic Pattern People by Gil Scott-Heron if you think through it. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Plastic Pattern People" means the words set to the music of Plastic Pattern People, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Gil Scott-Heron. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Plastic Pattern People and the lyrics to Plastic Pattern People are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Gil Scott-Heron who came here looking just for the lyrics to Plastic Pattern People, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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