Eno's lyrics are usually syntactically correct but semantically impossible; he's more concerned with metre and rhyme than literal meaning. And this is as good an example as there is.
On this track, Paul Rudolph played bass, Jaki Liebezeit played drums, and Eno sang and played guitar and piano.
Backwater, we're sailing at the edges of time
Backwater, we're drifting at the waterline
Oh, we're floating in the coastal waters,
you and me and the porter's daughters
Ooh, what to do; Not a sausage to do
And the shorter of the porter's daughters
dips her hand in the deadly waters
Ooh, what to do in a tiny canoe
Black water, there were six of us but now we are five
We're all talking to keep the conversation alive
There was a senator from Ecuador
who talked about a meteor
that crashed on a hill in the south of Peru
And was found by a conquistador
who took it to the emperor
and he passed it on to a Turkish guru
His daughter was slated for becoming divine
He taught her; He taught her how to split and define
But if you study the logistics
and heuristics of the mystics,
you will find that their minds rarely move in a line
So, it's much more realistic
to abandon such ballistics
and resign to be trapped on a leaf in the vine
Backwater, we're sailing at the edges of time
Backwater, we're drifting at the waterline
Oh, we're floating in the coastal waters,
you and me and the porter's daughters
Ooh, what to do; Not a sausage to do
And the shorter of the porter's daughters
dips her hand in the deadly waters
Ooh, what to do in a tiny canoe
