Lyrics:Nausea [Version (a)]:
1, 2, 3, 4
I'm a seasick sailor
On a ship of noise
I got my maps all backwards
And my instincts poisoned
In a truth blown gutter
Full of wasted years
Like blown-out speakers
Ringin' in my ears
Oh it's nausea, oh nausea
And we're gone
It's nausea, oh nausea
And we're gone
Now I'm a straight-line walker
In a black-out room
I push a shopping cart over
In an Aztec ruin
With my minion fingers
Working for some God
Who could see his own reflection
In a parking lot
Oh it's nausea, oh nausea
And we're gone
No it's nausea, oh nausea
And we're gone
Now I'm a priest teenager
On a tower of dust
I'm a dead generator
In a cloud of exhaust
I eat alone in the desert
With skulls for my pets
I rate the days, one to ten
With lead cigarettes
It's nausea, oh nausea
And we're gone
It's nausea, oh nausea
And we're gone
The Song:"Nausea" is sort of a funky acoustic song on record with lots of percussion. Beck said he wanted the song "to sound like The Stooges in South America." On stage, it is much punkier, more pure Stooges.
Beck said the music for this song came quickly, as part of a 7-day marathon of jamming and writing and then going back and taking bits of the jam and expanding.