"The Devil invented lies to turn the power of speech into a weapon of falsehood. And God invented the parable, the poem, the epic, the song, and the sonnet in order to turn the power of lies into fables, myths, types and shadows, to turn fiction into a weapon of truth.
I know more people who were converted by Aslan than by Aquinas. What does that tell you about the power of fiction?"
Food for thought. Have a Merry fourth week of Advent!
I've made no bones about the fact that I am a fan of Urge Overkill, specifically everything after their underrated Stull EP, which is why I tend to post so many lyrics of theirs. It might be because despite being a rock n roll band that parodied excess before succumbing to it, one of the things they got really good at with parts of Stull that continued for the rest of their career is how strong heir lyrics became.
Unfortunately, none of their albums include the lyrics in them (probably to help maintain the illusion) but the lyrics when paid attention to are often quite good.
For instance, listen to this song called "Tequila Sundae" (which is a pretty jokey title up until you read the lyrics) without looking at the lyrics below.
Now try it with the lyrics and compare how they contrast with the music:
Tequila Sundae
Music and Lyrics by Urge Overkill
Got no time for stimulation
Daylight runs and runs for hours
Heavy cold sweat under the black sun shower
Under the silicon valley sun
Flattery will get you nowhere
Oh my God, I didn't wanna hurt no one
In a false sleep, in need of stimulation
I wish the z-ball was the sun
She was gone (I believe her)
Gone (Underneath the)
A tequila sun
She was gone (I believe her)
Gone (I believe her)
A tequila sun
Now that I need her (Tequila sun)
She's off in the sun
With someone
With someone
Melt away!
Put yourself outside the future
Silicon sun rising above the ground
She was gone (I believe her)
Gone (Underneath the)
A tequila sun
She was gone (I believe her)
Gone (Underneath the)
A tequila sun
Now that I need her (Tequila sun)
She's off in the sun
With someone
With someone
She was gone (I believe her)
Gone (Underneath the)
A tequila sun
She was gone (I believe her)
Gone (I believe her)
I believe that woman
Now that I need you (Tequila sun)
Don't melt away!
Got no need for stimulation
Let the cheeba be the sun.
Not quite as simple as it first came across, no? On the surface it sounds like another rock song about glorifying self-destruction and excess, but instead becomes a lament on losing what is really important and replacing it with material things.
The usage of "Silicon Sun" and the replacement of the real sun with drink and drugs contrasts the artificial sun of the singer's desire with whoever "she is" that is off in the real sun. To me, that is the most interesting part of the song. She's off in the sun? She's in a better place? Is she dead? Did she find someone new? I guess it doesn't make a difference in the subject's mind since it's all the same to him. Now he's got nothing and fills it with substances that won't fill anything at all as the last line implies.
But to me, it's the title that is really clever. Tequila Sunrise is a well known drink, but he never once says it in the song. Tequila Sundae instead implies a desert, a treat, one that can melt away like the lyrics say. But in the song, what he wants to melt away are his memories of "her" and by the end he realizes what he lost and changes his mind. However, as the final lines imply, that's simply to late. He's filled the deep hole in himself with junk instead.
Contrasting the drink with the real sun is a great comparison for both the song, and a deeper level to the straightforward lyrics.
But what I like the most is how deceptively simple the lyrics are. They are essentially about a man drinking himself to forget, which is a popular topic in music, just as the similarly named "Tequila Sunrise" by the Eagles is. But what it is about is a bit more than that. Urge Overkill had always parodied the rock n roll lifestyle of sex, drugs, and alcohol, before, but this is the first song that doesn't feel like that at all. The song treats addition like the pit it is, but with a small inkling of hope that there is more than the artificial sun the singer lives his life by. It aims a bit higher than similar songs of its style.
It also helps that it has a kicking riff that goes great with the dark tinge of the lyrics. Sonically, the band has rarely ever sounded tighter than on this track, which goes well with the desperate state of the subject of the lyrics.
At some point instead of just being about carefree fun and optimism like Chuck Berry and the Beach Boys, rock music became entrenched in love of excess, lust, fatalism, and nihilism, until it became the grey mush of forgetful nothing it is nowadays. Bands like Urge Overkill wisely took the things rock bands made important and shone a light on how stupid, how dangerous, (and eventually) how evil, they actually are. Fun is fun, but the line is there for a reason, and patting yourself on the back for stumbling over it and off a cliff is not cool or rebellious, it's suicidal.
Or maybe it's just me. Either way, I'm glad songs, and bands, like this exist. Keeps me away from modern radio and away from all the pop songs celebrating self-destruction. I'm under no illusion that suicide is is preferable to life, and as someone who has stared the devil in the face and has no desire to ever see it again.
With some extra change in my pocket I made my way to the used book store for the first time in months and found myself with a ton of books I've always wanted to read but have either never found on a shelf or simply haven't had the money for when found.
Here's what I got my hands on:
"Eaters of the Dead" by Michael Crichton
"On Basilisk Station" by David Weber
"The Honor of the Queen" by David Weber
"Three Hearts & Three Lions" by Poul Anderson
"Speaker for the Dead" by Orson Scott Card
"The Bourne Identity" by Robert Ludlum
"Double Star" by Robert Heinlein
"Pacific Vortex!" by Clive Cussler
"Night Probe!" by Clive Cussler
"The Naked Sun" by Isaac Asimov
"The Foundation Trilogy" by Isaac Asimov
There were more I wanted to look into, but I had to stop somewhere. I'm assuming someone recently got rid of their collections of books, which is quite good for chumps like me who prefer to read physical copies.
It should take me a while to get through them, being a slow reader, but that's fine with me. All these have been near the top of my list to read for a long time now and I'm eager to get into them. I have already dived into Double Star. It is exactly what I hoped it was.
Have a good week, and don't forget to read something good while you're at it! I just don't expect you'll be reading anything as good as some of these any time soon.
Boy, this has been an odd one. First I get roped into NaNoWriMo (I should have hit my goal of 75,000 words by tonight of early tomorrow), then there is some personal brouhaha, and that's not even going into world events. Not the most easily digestible month in memory.
But at least I finally got started on a project I wanted to and I put out a short story as unedited and raw as it is. Getting something done is better than saying you're going to get something done. Oh, and Advent started, which was something that certainly lifted my spirits. So, despite a lot of weirdness, at least it evened out in a way.
I also played a pen and paper RPG called Fiasco for the first time with a friend this weekend. We were just trying it out, but it was a lot of fun. I certainly hope to play it again. I'm not a fan of the Coen Brothers' style of storytelling, but the core structure of the game is really fun. That's the part I want to play around more with.
All in all, time to bid farewell to November after such a strange run. Here's hoping for the rest of Advent and December to pick it up!
I don't know about you, but I'm ready to bid farewell to this year. Hopefully December can carry out the rest of the year with some holiday cheer and joy. I think we could all use more of both.
Remember when I said I would have a surprise out this month? Well, here it is. I wrote a short story called "Someone is Aiming at You" about a superhero with a very odd power. Unlike my novella, this was written pretty fast, which of course means it isn't professionally edited, but I'm very pleased with how the story turned out.
It's been a long month with some tragedies, some bad events in my life, and a lot of writing for NaNoWriMo (I'm near the end, I think! I'm over 65,000 words, so I hope so!) but it's finally nearing the end.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the story. It was rather fun to write.
When reading random articles on the internet, one of my favorites was by author Brian Niemeier on his Self-Publishing Beatitudes. I highly suggest reading it if you have any ambition of being a writer or are just curious about self-publishing.
Of course, I didn't really follow any of this advice when I published my first novella but that was mostly me just flailing around with what little knowledge I had. While I still don't have much knowledge, what little I've learned since then has mirrored his article nearly completely. Check out his other articles if you have the time, too. They're all really well written.
To sum it up, writing takes time and effort. You're probably going to have to give something up to do it, something you enjoy doing in order to improve and grow as a writer. Whether it's a hobby you like doing in your spare time, napping, or maybe even working extra hours, something has to give. There are only so many hours in the day. You can't be a better writer if you don't dedicate any time to writing.
You need to read as well as write to not only keep being inspired but to improve your own writing through the example of others. For instance, being a rather ignorant kid, I've never read Louis L'Amour before. I don't write westerns, but I have since read one novel and a short story collection and what he wrote really inspired me to sharpen my writing and work on several character-writing weaknesses I'm prone to doing. Keep reading, especially good books, it's only going to help you.
You need to know your strengths and weaknesses and realize you can't do everything. I'm not a very technical person, for instance. I probably won't end up writing Science Fiction. This isn't because I can't learn processes and theories and incorporate them into my work, but that I probably never will. I can only write what interests me as a storyteller, and as much as I like to read the genre, as a writer it is not something that interests me. I have more of a Fantasy bent, which means that is the genre I should be paying the most attention to in order to sharpen my strengths. It doesn't mean I won't ever write something in my weaker genre area, but if I'm busy trying to improve my weaknesses all the time, my strengths will suffer. Something has to go on the back-burner, and it should not be the aspects of writing I'm better at.
Anyway, there's more here. Give it a read, it's quite fascinating.
In other news, my NaNoWriMo project is going pretty well. I've written 10,000 words so far and am quite enjoying the project. If you're wondering why I wrote so much it is because this story is going to be longer than my other ones and I need to write more to compensate for the time limit. Don't worry, I find this fun.
Even if I don't hit the limit in time, I will have written a giant chunk of it which is good enough for me. Hopefully I can get it written down by the end of the year and then go into heavy editing and polishing mode like I did last year.
So that's my update! Have a great week and I'll see you next time!
