4.19.2005

Words and Music

Recent music keeps placing itself in front of me, as if to say "Hey! Lay off! We haven't abandoned all sense of Fun With Words!"

To wit:

1.
The group Foxymorons
Is this the first time anyone thought of this? I can't imagine, but I was jealous/sad that I hadn't come up with it. In 6th grade, when my friends and I learned what an oxymoron was, the best we could come up with was "no, you're the oxymoron!" Later, someone came up with a definition that included acne.

2.
Fiery Furnaces' "Chief Inspector Blancheflower"
This is a way-trippy song, especially the ADHD first three minutes. But what jumped out at me, as it played in the background, was this line:

And after that rustic imposition I took a deposition
I shared a Woodpecker cider with a local fratricider


Whaaa?! Just a few days ago, I was pondering another recent song with the line:

My dewy-eyed Disney bride, what has tried
swapping your blood with formaldehyde?
Monsters?
Whiskey-plied voices cried fratricide!


Is this a trend? A sub-genre of fratricide songs?
If so, I have a couple of suggestions:
Dylan’s “Ain’t No More Cain”
James Taylor’s “Friendly Fire and Rain”
Iggy Pop’s “Romulus for Life”

FRATRICIDE, n.
The act of killing a jackass for meat.
-Ambrose Bierce, Devil's Dictionaries, Revised and Expanded

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Also from Fiery Furnaces (from EP), from the Musical Fun with Words files:

Sullivan's Social Slub

Brandy Buttersotch bartered and begged
Many Motherwell mustered and mugged
Lucy Liverspots lied oh! And legged
Danny Dungerees digged and he dugged.
So’s’on Saturday say slips’offs’a Sullivan’s Social Slub.
Need a nice ner and a nip and a nub?
Sup’slides’over Sullivan’s Social Slub.
Candy Cumberland cookied and cleaned.
Andy Aspirate assholed and ate
Gary Guttergunk gathered and gleaned
Stripey Stripleford stripled ‘em straight.
So’s’on Saturday say slips’offs’a Sullivan’s Social Slub.
Need a nice ner and a nip and a nub?
Sup’slides’over Sullivan’s Socail Slub.
Sally Summerdress something and smiled
Vincent Vibraphone hung up and dialed
Fanny Firzafrank frowned fie fonna foe
Seamus Sweatyset swore at the show.
So’s’on Saturday say slips’offs’a Sullivan’s Social Slub.
Need a nice ner and a nip and a nub?
Sup’lides’over Sullivan’s Social Slub.

Anonymous said...

Fratricide is the act of killing one's own brother or sister. It can also mean killing one's fellow countrymen (in the context of them being like a brother or sister). It has aboslutely nothing to do with killing a donkey for its meat.

Anonymous said...

In response to Anonymous: When Bierce wrote the entry for Fraticide she was implying that the fellow countrymen were the jackasses, and the reason you would kill them would be for meat. Of course it had nothing to do with actual donkeys.