song of the day: Rape Game
word of the day: Quagswag / to shake back and forth

Ah, Rape Game. One of the highlights of my career. All of the music to this song was written by Alex Gibson. I had written this song to an entirely different chord progression and melody, a very poppy sweet thing. But Alex wasn't sold on it. So, we decided to really fuck around with it, and Alex had written all these weird, cool pieces of music, and this was one of them. He played it for me, and I was like THAT'S THE ONE!! And then he looped it over and over, and I sang a new melody and pretty soon we had the new Rape Game. First time I've ever co-wrote with someone like that. The music is so fucking killer, I was like "dude, write twelve things like that and let's do a whole album this way", which may happen. At any rate,

the lyrics were inspired by the movie Mulholland Drive, specifically the scene where Naomi Watts' character arrives at the airport and those two fucking weird old people are driving away smiling all spooky. Some of my favorite lines on the entire album are in this song. particularly "you laid awake and thought about horses", that made me laugh over and over and still does. i mean, why are all girls so into horses? always with the horses. i just got weirdly laughy thinking of this girl sitting in some dive apartment in West Hollywood, starting to crumble in the industry, and headed down that dark whole, and there are bugs crawling on her bed, and meth heads next door, and she's thinking of horses back home. the next line that really gets me is the "Jesus comes, or the Beatles are forgotten" which eventually morphs into "Jesus comesw with his penis in your bottom". Oh my God, did Alex and I go around and around about this. When I got the idea in the studio, we all gathered around and did a gang vocal of it, and I laughed and laughed and was so charged by the taboo of it all, this innocent girl sodomized by Christ (which is a metaphor, of course, she's waiting to be saved, yearning for redemptive messianic deliverance, and instead she gets fucked by the promise of it all). Well, anyway, Alex refused to turn it up. He was like, freaked out by it, and just thought it was way too shocking and jarring and blasphemous. He wanted it "tucked" down in the song, like a subliminal thing. And for whatever reason, after working seamlessly together on the record for months, we hit an impass. I wanted it load as hell. "That's the WHOLE FUCKING POINT", I told Alex, "If you don't turn that shit up, you are sucking the cock of mediocrity!" and so on. He maintained a level-headed dispostion -as is his way- and hoped I'd wise up. Weeks went by, and I only grew more adamant. "Dude, turn that shit up, I want it LOUD" and so on. We went through many permutations, until finally it was way too loud for him and not loud enough for me, and that was the compromise.

One other thing I like on this song is the bridge, where the two lines are sung simultaneously, right over each other, without us trying to make them intelligible. Its weird, sounds spooky. I guess I'll dedicate this one to David Lynch.

so you were standing at the gate
could hardly wait
parents waiving, water in their eyes
as they said a prayer
for their very special girl

I can guess why you'd wanna come
cuz where you're from
people always told you
how you shine
"a face like that, oughtta be in pictures"

praying that you land with a back bone
but it's gonna snap like a wish bone
when we get our hands on your no-name
then you're gonna break in the rape game

your own place, even if its small
brittle walls, cracks in the plaster
black specks crawling on your bed sheets

you laid awake
and thought about horses
and going home
but you never will
you're here until
jesus comes
or the Beatles are forgotten
(jesus comes with his penis in your bottom)

maybe there's a switch in your back bone
flip it and it snaps like a wish bone
when we get our hands on your no-name
then you're gonna break in the rape game

[simultaneously:]
you're just a girl who needs a scene and we'd love to see you kneeling
you're just a girl who needs a break and we'd love to see you broken