3/11/10

mix 2: human breakdown of absurdity-the american song-poem machine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_poem

I put this together from 4 compilations of song-poems, MSR Madness Vols 4-6 and The American Song-Poem Anthology. The opening song, "A Blind Man's Penis" was originally called "Stevie Wonder's Penis" and was written in 1975 by John Trubee, New Jersey's foremost comic prank-caller and was inexplicably turned into a song-poem by Nashville Co-Writers Records in 1976.

John Trubee tells it:

"Stevie Wonder's penis is erect because he's blind. This ludicrous line was invented out of sheer boredom and homicidal frustration as I labored as a cashier in a convenience store in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1975. I'd scribble some poems and weird phrases on a legal pad to vent my seething anguish. Writing on the job was a kind of self-invented therapy to prevent the onset of mental illness due to occupational stress and severe teenage alienation.
In late spring of 1976, I bought one of those horrible sleazy tabloids you find in supermarkets by the check-out stand. I had to keep up on my UFO sightings and mass hatchet murders.

In the back pages of the Midnight Globe (not the National Enquirer, as erroneously reported elsewhere -- was it Time?), I scanned the geeky little ads and saw: "Cowrite on a 50-50 basis, earn $20,000 royalties, send your song poems to ..." some outfit in Nashville, Tennessee. I thought to myself: wouldn't it be fun to send these people the most ridiculous, stupid, vile, obscene, retarded Iyrics to see their response?

In five minutes of stream of consciousness (or unconsciousness), I hammered out the following:



Peace & Love

I got high last night on LSD
My mind was beautiful, and I was free
Warts loved my nipples because they are pink
Vomit on me, baby
Yeah Yeah Yeah.

Stevie Wonder's penis is erect because he's blind
It's erect because he's blind, it's erect because he's blind
Stevie Wonder's penis is erect because he's blind
It's erect because he is blind

Let's make love under the stars and watch for UFOs
And if little baby Martians come out of the UFOs
You can fuck them
Yeah Yeah Yeah.

The zebra spilled its plastinia on bemis
And the gelatin fingers oozed electric marbles
Ramona's titties died in hell
And the Nazis want to kill everyone.

Stevie Wonder's penis is erect because he's blind ... etc.


I wanted to get an emotional letter from the jerks in Nashville. I wanted them to tell me I was crazy. I wanted there to curse me out in writing so I could show all my friends.

Several weeks later I received a letter from Nashville Co-Writers which began:

Dear John,

We have just received your lyrics and think they are very worthy of being recorded with the full Nashville Sound Production. ... I am enclosing a contract of acceptance. Please sign and return along with $79.95 to cover the cost for each song to be completed ..."

28 mp3 files, download here

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