December 07, 2017

Thank You for Not Being One of Them

Here's another one of these from that 1998 RKCNDY show. It took some doing to come up with an undone take on "us against the world" but I think this one does it. It was one of a handful of songs whose sensibility and narrative voice was appropriated for the King Dork books.

If nothing else, its existence is justified by the lines: "you don't hesitate to exaggerate and say that it's okay" and "later that night we hold each other tight and plot their destruction", the latter of which I've seen as a tattoo at least once, along with the song title's acronym. (And yes, it is so an acronym rather than an "initialism": pronounced "TIFF-un-boot.")

I often used to remain silent for the stops and let the audience fill in the line endings, which was great when it worked, but a bit embarrassing when it didn't, and you never know which you were going to get. For whatever reason I didn't do it this time, but you can hear the crowd joining in anyway (and if you were there, thanks.)

There was originally a third verse that looked toward a future of growing old together and cultivating an insular life of splendid isolation and loving misanthropy. I can no longer remember how it went, though it's written down somewhere no doubt, but "Population: Us" was in effect an elaboration on it.

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Posted by Dr. Frank at December 7, 2017 05:50 PM