Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said is a Philip K. Dick novel in which Jason Taverner, who is a Six (a genetically improved superhuman) as well as a singer and television star, lives in a future American police state. Soon after writing this, Dick experienced a series of coincidences in his own life, which he was intrigued by and wrote about in the essay How to Build a Universe that Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later, included as the introduction to his short story collection I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Jason Taverner wakes up one day into a world where he is unknown — and without any existence in the records of the State. As an ex-celebrity and an ex-citizen, he has real problems.

Taverner's story is intertwined with those of Police General Felix Buckman, and Felix's sister Alys Buckman. Alys is a heavy user of reality-changing drugs, and the owner of the only Jason Taverner record in the new, altered, world.

The themes of celebrity, genetic enhancement, altered reality and drugs are interwoven with more homely themes to create a novel that works not only as science fiction, but also as literature.

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said was awarded first prize in the John W. Campbell Awards for the best science fiction novel of the year in 1975.

Note: the title is a reference to Flow my tears, a piece by the 16th century composer John Dowland, setting to music a poem by an anonymous author (possibly Dowland himself). The poem begins:

Flow, my tears, fall from your springs,

Exiled for ever, let me mourn

Where night's black bird her sad infamy sings,

There let me live forlorn.

[edit] References to Flow My Tears

Gary Numan, in his song "Listen to the Sirens" (from his band's self-titled debut album Tubeway Army), clearly makes a reference to the novel with the opening lyrics, "Flow my tears, the new police song".
The rock band Liars recorded a song called "Flow My Tears, The Spider Said", which is the last track on their album, They Were Wrong, So We Drowned.
The New Jersey grindcore group Discordance Axis base their song (from their second LP, Jouhou) of the same name on Dick's novel.
There is a discussion of the book as well as Dick's later essay How to Build a Universe that Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later near the end of Richard Linklater's Waking Life.
Coincedentally, Sting, the former frontman for the rock group "The Police," released an album in 2006 entitled, "Songs from the Labyrinth" a tribute to John Dowland. The album features Sting's version of "Flow my tears."