Monday, November 06, 2006
Audio Workshop: Best Friend's Wedding
MP3 File
some people gonna know just what I’m talking about
usually play the cool cat
one time I opened my mouth
yo, check the setting
my best friend’s wedding
she’s getting married
this guy named Larry
and yeah
that’s kind of lucky since I'm trying to rhyme
but I'm saying, this is all fact
for those checking the time
it’s 1:30
hmmm, think I'll drink early
a little Ketel-1
then a little bit of flirty
talking to some girlies
start feeling nervy
said “fcuk this wedding”
not sure anybody heard me
but I did
and I found it disturbing
anger. guilt. fear.
not quite sure of the wording
but I felt something
know it’s best to say nothing
but ...
i’m just fronting
unless I say something
what …
here she come walking
the organ is playing
priest started talking
next thing you know I was saying …
[Chorus]
there was silence
[]
then a wisecrack
“what the fuck was that”
said someone in the back
and I was like
“come on baby
let me talk to the lady
and maybe
we can have jokes later
okay b?”
I turned back and looked her dead in her eyes
she looked back without a hint of surprise
I smiled and said
you know I have the worst timing
you’re probably wondering why now,
and why the fcuk are you rhyming?
if you got something to say
you should just say it
that’s very true
so this last rhyme from me to you
as long as what I bleed
and the seas are blue
and whatever size the jeans
you gotta squeeze into
it’s a dream for two
i’ll flat-leave my crew
jump through hoops
and off the trampoline for you
platonic best friend
so what the fuck am I saying?
got a vodka tonic here that says I ain't even playing
[Chorus]
y'all probably need more story
want a big blaze of glory
n's get degrees, need a f'ing allegory
but when I'm rocking on the beat man
that plan is kind of boring
need some guns, titties, drugs
otherwise I'm snoring
let's get a little blood, make the scene a little gory
one shot to larry's head, dead before he hits the flooring
brains start pouring
crowd starts roaring
cause he's the motherf'ker dead, I'm the one touring...
(holla!)
TAN's Sauna-Like Audio Room
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Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrm. In a way, I feel sympathetic with this guy...I've always said that romantic love to me was just best-friend love + bodily desire.
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, unrequited love...I guess that's when you think someone's your best friend but they think someone else is their best friend.
And that sucks.
So I feel for that. I'd have horrendous feelings in that situation, too.
Then again--and I wish I had the book on me so I could quote the passage--Gavin de Becker does a very convincing job in "The Gift of Fear" pointing out that pretty much anyone can imagine having just about the same types of feelings as someone else over something upsetting, there are nonetheless good reactions & bad reactions.
One of the "bad reactions" to unrequited best-friendship is possessiveness. Interestingly enough, it's not like the people who get possessive and the people who don't are randomly distributed or born doomed to such a reaction. There're pretty simple correlations: usually, people who think of "love" as "having _____ in their lives because THEY want it" weren't shown the "good" types of love (which are, if you get used to them young enough, perfectly satisfying) early on.
So this song makes me gloomy, too. In it, I see someone who is badly adjusted to handle unrequited love in a way that's good for both him & the person he thinks he loves. Someone who can't come up with other ways to feel loved because he hardly has experience with any ways that're out of his hands--the only ones that he's experienced are the ones he's been able to make happen himself (which are usually acts of control), so he goes for the only even somewhat-love-like thing he's ever known.
Then there's the bit that makes me disappointed. I'm not the most concise writer in the world, but it took a while to explain all that. And it wasn't something that Gavin de Becker made convincing in a single sentence, either. So, like many true/reasonable-but-too-long-for-popular-media bits of enlightenment about human behavior, it's not exactly something that gets tagged onto the end of this song or thrown into the liner notes.
And thus it stands alone as an example of an inexplicable variety of normality, rather than an explicable kind. And those inexplicable varities are the ones that set standards for acceptable behavior.
I don't want anybody to have to go through that--what the song's protagonist did or what the song's protagonist's best friend would if she lost her actual best friend to gunfire.
But all the...all the talk that can make it so this voice can be heard yet not a role model...it's all just "too complicated." And so down into the void of forgotten things that could've made a lot of lives better it goes.
*sigh*
This is where I want to give you love on your style, sound and energy but you aint in it for that. My money is in a transitional period right now tho' Papì.
ReplyDeleteI like the story TAN. The music is a little repetitive. Singing is ok, is that you? Sounds like two different people. I'd amp up the beat some and you have a solid song. if you were asking.
ReplyDeleteYour blog should be audio TAN. Or a podcast. You don't give us enough of your voice.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if he only loves her because he can't have her. He's poring all his energy into the fantasy of possessing her, blowing her man away, but he doesn't seem to have a clue about what he will do once he gets her, beyond jumping through hoops and off a trampoline.
ReplyDelete"anger. guilt. fear. not quite sure of the wording"
ReplyDeletenice line.
Do you always want something you can't have? Who said you should be entitled to her? Art mirrors life. Only thing is in life the mo-fo is also strapped. Holla that.
ReplyDeletenice.
ReplyDeleteitneresting comments. There's little commentary on the history between the person telling the story (TAN?) and the best friend/wife. Who knows if their history validates such an act, or if it's jsut something he can't have? That's the difference between a three minute song, and literature. But it is a compelling snapshot.
katie - thanks for the thoughtful response. i'd liken songs to more flash-fiction. specifically in storytelling, I think it resists hardcore deconstruction. i lvoe that it would provoke thoughts about the nature of love, unrequited or otherwise, and possessiveness etc. But i was most inspired by the movie Best Friend's Wedding. so the flimsy relationship of the would-be bride and groom is not accounted for. hence you could extract more of a tragic tone, but that's not my intent. and the shooting of larry is jokey, and more a response to the need for an appropriate "ending."
ReplyDeletemermaid - thanks. "show me the money" is sort of tongue in cheek. lovei s always appreciated, particularly if that's all you have to offer.
anonymii - thanks. i agree with #1 on the beat. #2, I don't know, same point with katie, how deep can you get in 16 bars? #3 and carl - thanks
Carl, He's doing her. Trust me. That's why he does murder.
ReplyDeleteWoah, just realized in reading the comments that you WROTE it!
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, I do feel like the tongue-in-cheek mockery of an ending that's "appropriate" helps take away from the poem's/song's/story's normalization of out-of-proportion & bad reactions to common feelings. In making fun of people for expecting a norm at all, it helps make itself less likely to condone any one way of doing things as part of the world of "normal" or "okay."
I noticed that when I was reading it the first time but forgot once I got into writing my comment. Thanks for reminding me.
that's pretty funny... kind of reminds me of a hybrid of "The Graduate" and "Kill Bill" too... I think we all know the production could get amped up a bit, and that's just a matter of time, but I think conceptually it would be hot to have some really out-of-place shit in there...like a beat with Wedding bells and clinking champagne glasses, or a wedding march, or just something crazy to spice it up. And I like the way the delivery - almost slurred a bit- fits with the character. What might be cool and enhnce the shock factor would be to tell it in the third person, then say, "Yeah it was me, btw." you might have some messy draws in the crowd though...
ReplyDeleteI need more songs like this if I am to survive
ReplyDeleteWait a minute . . . didn't your best friend Harry have a brother Larry and in five days from now he's gonna marry?
ReplyDeleteNo?
OK, sorry.
he's hopin you can make it there if you can,
ReplyDeletecause in the ceremony you'll be the best man...