I Have a Special Plan for This World (song)

## "I Have a Special Plan for This World"

**I Have a Special Plan for This World** is a song and free form poem by the musical group Current 93. It is unique (albeit not very complex) musically, comprising 22 minutes of grungy droning with speaking interspersed with interludes of incomprehensibly distorted speech and fragments from the initial bit. This is not exactly rollerskating music, but has carved out it's own niche in the online sphere of experimentalist musicians and music admirers.

## Synopsis

The song is based off of a long freeform poem by Thomas Ligotti and spoken by David Tibet, the founder of Current 93. The song is a narrative between the narrator and various people and beings as well as situations, like so:

### Part I: Refrain

The refrain of the song is spoken. A "Special Plan" is referenced, which is implied to only be achievable when one is "calm and joyful and entirely alone" and in a "great new darkness."

### Part II: The Creature

The narrator encounters someone in the shadows who tells them their plan to take away all flesh, but the narrator goes on to remark their plan needs to go past even this.

### Part III: A Sardonic Spirit

The narrator encounters a spirit that tells them four different ways to die, and how all deaths are combinations of these. The narrator listens more to their words for years but only hears echoes.

### Part IV: Dreamers

The narrator hears people speaking in crooked houses but disagrees with them, as they view the world as original and not as a single monstrosity grown from a single seed.

### Part V: The Moonlit Man

The narrator encounters a man in the moonlight who tells them their plan is a mistake because there would be nothing to do and no one to know. The narrator replies by saying the world is a mistake.

### Part VI: A Funny Man

A story about a man who tells jokes for children is related, and how he shared with the kids his special plan for the world and made them laugh.

### Part VII: A Lunatic

The narrator reveals they first learned the facts (implied to be part of their view of humanity) from a lunatic who tells them people don't really exist and are just unoriginal mirrors of each other parading about.

### Part VIII: The Puppet Show

The narrator attends a puppet show where the show seems to get stranger over time and it is implied the puppets become aware and turn to face the puppet master.

### Part IX: The Empty Building

In an empty building, the narrator hears a voice ask them what would remain if they removed all the words of the world. The narrators remains silent (perhaps that is meant to be the answer) and is strengthened in their resolve to carry out their special plan.

### Part X: Refrain

The ending of the song repeats the initial refrain twice, slowing down the recording speed each time. After the last line the song concludes.

## Lyrics

In her eyes tonight there's a glow today

There's so bright they can [muttering]

Blessed are the honest [muttering] she's such fun tonight, she's a treat tonight, you can spread her around bread she's so sweet

When everyone you have ever loved is finally gone

When everything you have ever wanted is finally done with

When all of your nightmares are for a time obscured as by a shining brainless beacon

Or a blinding eclipse of the many terrible shapes of this world

When you are calm and joyful and finally entirely alone

Then in a great new darkness you will finally execute your special plan

"One needs to have a plan" someone said who was turned away into the shadows

And who I had believed was sleeping or dead

"Imagine," he said "all the flesh that is eaten

The teeth tearing into it, the tongue tasting its savor

And the hunger for that taste

Now take away that flesh", he said

"Take away the teeth and the tongue, the taste and the hunger"

"Take away everything as it is - that was my plan, my own special plan for this world"

I listened to these words and yet I did not wonder

If this creature whom I had thought sleeping or dead would ever approach his vision

Even in his deepest dreams or his most lasting death

Because I had heard of such plans, such visions, and I knew they did not see far enough

That what was demanded in the way of a plan needed to go beyond tongue and teeth and hunger and flesh

Beyond the bones and the dust of bones and the wind that would come to blow the dust away

And so I began to envision a darkness that was long before the dark of night

And a strangely shining light that owed nothing to the light of day

That day may seem like other days

Once more we feel the tiny-legged trepidations

Once more we are mangled by great grinding fear

But that day will have no others after

No more worlds like this will follow

Because I have a plan, a very special plan

No more worlds like this, no more days like that

"There are but four ways to die," a sardonic spirit might have said to me:

"There is dying that occurs relatively suddenly

There is dying that occurs relatively gradually

There is dying that occurs relatively painlessly

There is the death that is full of pain

Thus by various means they are combined

The sudden and the gradual

The painless and the painful

To yield but four ways to die

And there are no others"

Even after the voice stopped speaking

I listened for it to speak again

After hours and day and years have passed

I listened for some further words

Yet all I heard were the faintest echoes reminding me

"There are no others

There are no others"

Was it then that I began to conceive for this world a special plan?

There are no means for escaping this world

It penetrates even into your sleep

And is his substance

You are caught in your own dreaming

Where there is no space

And a hell forever where there is no time

You cant do nothing you aren't told to do

There is no hope for escape from this dream that was never yours

The very words you speak are only its very words

And you talk like a traitor

Under its incessant torture

There are many who have designs upon this world

And dream of wild and vast reformations

I have heard them talking in their sleep of elegant mutations and cunning annihilations

I have heard them whispering in the corners of crooked houses

And in the alleys and narrow back streets of this crooked creaking universe

Which they with their new designs were made straight and sound

But each of these new and ill conceived designs is deranged in its heart

For they see this world as if it were alone and original

And not as only one of count with others

Whose nightmares all precede

Like a hideous garden grown from a single seed

I have heard these dreamers talking in their sleep

And I stand waiting for them

As at the top of a darkened flight of stairs

They know nothing of me

And none of the secrets of my special plan

While I know every crooked creaking step of theirs

It was the voice of someone who was waiting in the shadows

Who was looking at the moon and waiting for me to turn the corner

And enter a narrow street

And stand with him in the dull glaze of moonlight

Then he said to me

He whispered

That my plan was misconceived

That my special plan for this world was a terrible mistake

"Because," he said, "There is nothing to do and there is no where to go

There is nothing to be and there is no one to know

Your plan is a mistake," he repeated

"This *world* is a mistake," I replied

The children always followed him

When they saw him hopping by

A funny walk

A funny man

A funny funny funny man

He made them laugh sometimes

He made them laugh oh yes he did

He did he did he did he did

Oh how he made them roll

One day he took them to a place

He knew a special place

And told them things about this world

This funny funny funny world

Which made them laugh sometimes

He made them laugh oh yes he did

He did he did he did he did

Oh how he made them roll

Then the funny man who made them laugh

Sometimes he did

Revealed to them his special plan

His very special funny plan

Knowing they would understand

And maybe laugh sometimes

He made them laugh

Oh yes he did

He did he did he did he did

Their eyes grew wide beneath there lids

And how he made them roll

I first learned the facts from a lunatic

In a dark and quiet room that smelled of stale time and space

"There are no people

Nothing at all like that

The human phenomenon is but the sum of densely coiled layers of illusion

Each of which winds itself upon the supreme insanity

But there are persons of any kind

When all that can be is mindless mirrors

Laughing and screaming as they parade about

In an endless dream"

But when I asked the lunatic what it was

It swore itself within these mirrors

As they marched endlessly in stale time and space

He only looked and smiled

Then he laughed and screamed

And in his black and empty eyes

I saw for a moment as in a mirror

A form the shade of divinity

In flight from its stale infinity

Of time and space and the worst of all

Of this world dreams

My special plan for the laughter and the screams

We went to see some little show

That was staged in an old shed

Past the edge of town

And in its beginnings all seemed well

The miniature curtain stage glowed in the darkness

While those dolls bounced along on their strings before our eyes

And in its beginnings all seemed well

But then there came a suttle turning point which some have noticed

And I was one

Who quietly left the show

No I did not

Because I could see where things were going

As the antics of those dolls grew strange

And the fragile strings grew taut

With their tiny pullings, tiny limbs

The others around me became appalled

And turned away and abandoned the show

That was staged in an old shed

Past the edge of town

But I wanted to witness what could never be

I wanted to see what could not be seen

But the moment of consummate disaster

My puppets turned to face the puppet master

It was twilight and i stood in a grayish haze of the vast empty building

When the silence was enriched by a reverberant voice

"All the things of this world," it said

"Are of but one essence

For which there are no words

This is the greater part which has no beginning or end

And the one essence of this world for which there can be no words

Is that all the things of this world

This is the lesser part which had a beginning and shall have an end

And for which words were conceived solely to speak of

The tiny broken beings of this world," it said

"The beginnings and endings of this world," it said

"For which words were conceived solely to speak of

Now remove these words and what remains?" it asked me

As I stood in the twilight of that vast empty building

But i did not answer

The question echoed over and over

But I remained silent until the echoes died

And as twilight passed into the evening I felt my

Special plan for which there are no words

Moving towards a greater darkness

There are some who have no voices

Or none that will ever speak

Because of the things they know about this world

And the things they feel about this world

Because the thoughts that fill a brain

That is a damaged brain

Because the pain that fills a body

That is a damaged body

Exists in other worlds

Countless other worlds

Each of which stands alone in an infinite empty blackness

For which no words are being conceived

And where no voices are able to speak

When a brain is filled only with damaged thoughts

When a damaged body is filled only with pain

And stands alone in a world surrounded by infinite empty blackness

And exists in a world for which there is no special plan

When everyone you have ever loved is finally gone

When everyone you have ever loved is finally gone

When everything you have ever wanted is finally done with

When all of your nightmares are for a time obscured

As by a shining brainless beacon

Or a blinding eclipse of the many terrible shapes of this world

When you are calm and joyful and finally entirely alone

Then in a great new darkness

You will finally execute your special plan

When everyone you have ever loved is finally gone

When everything you have ever wanted is finally done with

When all of your nightmares are for a time obscured

As by a shining, brainless, beacon

Or a blinding eclipse of the many terrible shapes of this world

When you are calm and joyful and finally entirely alone

Then in a great new darkness you will finally execute your special plan