KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.

CONTEXT IS OMNIPOTENCE.

 

JOHN THE OBSCURE ™

By John Ruch

© 2010

 

Let’s Start a Band: Free One-Line Lyrics

 

       The last performance by my last band did not include a single note. Instead, we stole the spotlight—literally—from another band that had appropriated one of our radical performance art pieces for their own lazy ends. We crashed their show, seized the stage. My guitarist played a spotlight on me while I read a screed denouncing the perversion of our act and encouraging the kids to be more than a passive audience.

       That anti-show was an explicit version of my definition of a band: the bodyguards for a precious truth.

       It’s not the only valid motivation for starting a band; it’s just the only one that would get me out of bed in the morning. Yet all I see most bands doing is attempting to create an ersatz bourgeoisie for fuck-ups, or a low-grade criminal lifestyle without the dangers of actual crime.

       Every few years, I make small noises about starting another band. When I hang up flyers or post to Craigslist, I’m like one of those guys who posts a personal ad thinking that the last six months worth of “Penthouse” centerfolds are waiting with pens in hand. I end up hearing from a guy who worships Satan but apparently got nothing in return for his soul; or who boasts of his “connections” in the execrable alcohol mafia that controls live music in this country; or, worst of all, who likes the Dropkick Murphys.

       What I’m looking for is a profoundly twisted hick straight out of “The Dirty Dozen,” a guy or gal so fundamentally maladjusted that they instinctively make music that is wholly their own and who will otherwise obediently take a bullet for the very serious troublemaking I have in mind. But these people never use Craigslist and don’t look up from the sidewalk enough to read a flyer.

       So I give up, and console myself by thinking about all the negatives of the music scene. My own negatives, too: how performance is one of my talents, but music per se is not, and how I’m probably too old now to ever escape being sonically imitative. Writing is my forte, and provides me with even more autocratic aesthetic satisfaction than leading a band. The thought of a band spending six months to make 60 minutes of music fills me with an impatience that my ability to write anything at any time pleasantly assuages.

       But the aching truth is that many of my good ideas lie fallow simply because they rely on other people. As obnoxious as it is to have one of my expressions hijacked, it is far more painful to never get it out there at all.

       So it is with the latest concept to get me excited about music once again: epigrammatic songs. My idea is for songs with lyrics that are only one line long. The lyrical meaning would be concentrated, while the larger creativity would be in the music and its arrangement. The song could be 10 seconds or 10 minutes long; whatever felt right. The lyric would be sung or spoken at least once, and thereafter could be repeated, fragmented or distorted, but never reworded or added to.

       As usual, here I sit with words lacking music. But it occurs to me that many others must be out there with music lacking words. And a band is just one form of collaboration in a world that now offers musicians many other varieties. I can cast my bread upon the waters and give the epigrammatic song idea to many musicians, many bands.

       Here is what I propose. Any musician(s) can use any or all the following one-line lyrics for free, only under the following conditions and exceptions: 1) these are non-exclusive, single-purpose, licensed rights to which I retain all other control, and apply only to the lyrics appearing in this column and not to any other words or writing anywhere else on this site or in my other works; 2) you must tell me promptly where and how you are using my lyrics, including any new uses that might arise, and say in writing that you will abide by the terms spelled out here; 3) your use of my lyrics and concept must conform to the “epigrammatic song” aesthetic concept described above, including not altering or adding to them; 4) any non-music-related use of my lyrics is prohibited; 5) I must receive full credit as lyric-writer in any published form of the song, commercial and non-commercial, including but not limited to record albums and online song-sharing; 6) I must receive at no charge to me at least one (1) copy of any commercial product, including but not limited to record albums, that includes any use of my lyrics; 7) the right to use my lyrics is free of charge or royalty for use in songwriting, live performances and non-commercial song-sharing of any kind, but you (musician and/or musical group) agree to pay me 10 percent of the musician or band’s net profit, as determined by standard accounting methods, on any commercial use, including but not limited to record album sales, online song sales, merchandise sales, licensing fees and advertising income, in perpetuity; compensation for a song using my lyrics in a collection of other works not using my lyrics, such as a record album, will be determined based on the per-song net profit determined by dividing net proceeds by the number of songs, and compensating me 10 percent of the net profit on the particular songs using my lyrics; 8) you agree to have as much fun as possible in writing songs around the lyrics.

       In short, let’s start a band without starting a band. And don’t violate the DIY ethos here, or I’ll see you on-stage at your next show.

Band name bonus

       Need a name for your band or musical project? Here are some free suggestions by genre:

       Punk: Death Before This Honor

       Metal: Meaningless Intensifier

       Goth/techno/industrial/trance: Allfornaut

       Hip-hop: It Takes a Paycheck of Millions to Sell Us Out

 

 

Epigrammatic Lyrics

 

 

The people who robbed the pyramids are more important than those who built them

 

 

Always again—first we forget

 

 

Horror is no ghost at all

 

 

Life after death is death during life

 

 

Raised to raise hell

 

 

Aikido, not boxing

 

 

You can’t put the genie back in the bottle, but you can remove the name of God from the golem

 

 

Hello, cruel world

 

 

Humor, not comedy; erotica, not porn

 

 

Bats are birds in the Bible

 

 

The shrewing of the tame

 

 

Triumph of the want—are you commercially correct?

 

 

Down the rabbit hole, not the memory hole

 

 

You win, but I’m not the prize

 

 

A church without a cemetery is a gun without bullets

 

 

Posted Jan. 31, 2010.

 

 

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Get off the Internet and read a book. John currently recommends:

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LINKS

 

Cocktail Party Physics // Allergic Reaction // This Godless Endeavor (the Iraq War through the prism of heavy metal) // Female Science Professor // Wounded Warrior Project (your tax dollars are doing the damage. pony up some more to help fix it.) // Wikidumper // Cerebral Wasabi (one of those magical people with whom I think I probably have nothing and everything in common) // Emily Short’s Interactive Fiction (chatbot deluxe) // William Poundstone (still telling secrets)// City on Fire (anarkiwi)// Cake Wrecks (let them wreck cake) // Museum of Animal Perspectives (because YouTube and TV already show us enough of our own animal perspective)// IFoughtTheLaw (we’re the future—your future)// Lucy Lawless  (quit preaching and fight!)

 

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