Here's one of the most amazing things ever -- can't believe I haven't talked about it until now.
The band Godspeed You!Black Emperor (atrocious name, but that's beside the point) does interesting instrumental music and often sprinkles in various audio samples. The Album
F#A#∞ has the following dialogue sample at the start of the third and last song:
P1: You think the end of the world is coming?
P2: The preacher man says it's the end of time... he says that America's rivers are going dry. The interest is up, the stock market's down... You guys gotta be careful walking around here this late at night...
P3 (woman, unclear): {something about "change"}
P2: This -- no we don't, ma'am, I'm sorry. This -- this -- this is the perfect place to get jumped.
P1: But do you think the end of the world is coming?
P2: No. So says the preacher man, but... I don't go by what he says
Now I've listened to this album way before anything else of this band, and I always thought the exchange was staged and meant to be some concrete story thing. Like, the album is about the end of the world, so I thought it's a scenario where society is in really terrible shape, the preacher man is some kind of known figure, and P2 is probably a shop owner, maybe at a gas station... I always thought the woman was asking him whether he provides a certain service mb related to cars, and he said "no we don't" as relating to the store.
Anyway, it turns out the band has another album called Slow Riot For New Zero Canada, whose second song has an extended interview just sprinkled in between instrumental bits -- with P1 interviewing P2. The interview is so strange and P2 turns out to be such a peculiar and specific person, and also the way he words things is so bad that it super doesn't sound staged. I almost want to quote the entire interview because it's amazing, but here's the beginning... also, apparently P2 is called Blaise Bailey Finnegan III.
Interviewer: Well, just... where are you coming from?
Blaise Bailey Finnegan III: Well... I don't like the way the country's ran, don't you know, and, erm... that's pretty much what I was expressing in my poem. The government... the American government - they're sneaky, they're very deceitful, they're liars, they're cheats, they're rip-offs. I mean, the American government is, is one systematic government that... that nobody can trust. I don't trust them myself
and another key section...
Interviewer: We overheard you before talking about... you went to court today for a speeding ticket?
Blaise Bailey Finnegan III: That's accurate
Interviewer: right. Do you wanna tell us that story?
Blaise Bailey Finnegan III: Yes, absolutely, I wouldn't mind telling you the story. Erm... I went to court today for a speeding ticket, and I told the judge, erm... "Let me tell you something, and you listen and you listen good, I'm only gonna say this one time and one time only, I don't repeat myself for nobody," I said. I says... "I'm here to pay a speeding ticket, not to listen to your lectures and hear you run your mouth for an hour." I says "I'm here to pay off my speeding ticket... and I'm here to... to get my fines out of the way and get the fuck to work." The judge says "You can't talk like that in my courtroom, you're in contempt of court." Then I said... I told the judge, "If that's the best you can do, I feel sorry for you." I said "Why don't you just shut your fucking mouth for once and listen." I said "I'm not gonna take your shit." I said "I'm gonna pay my speeding ticket like I said." I walked up to the god damn judge and I hand him my 25 dollars and I says "Here's my money, now I am leaving." And I left it at that
Then, before I left, I turned around and told the judge "I'm here to state who I am and be honest with you." I said "If they thought I was dangerous on the road like you're trying to accuse me of, wouldn't they have taken my license when I first got it? Yes they would." And the judge says "Yeah, you have a point," He goes "You don't need to get loud," I said "Don't get loud?" I says "I've got every right to get loud." I says "You can't do a god damn thing about it, because I'm expressing myself in your court, and there is nothing you can do about it. You think you're god because you have a robe and you can put people up the goddamn river for 20 years? Well you're not." And I left it at that
So what the hell is this? Well, apparently what actually happened is that the band was performing some early, unpublished version of their first album F#A#∞, and at some point, this guy jumps on stage (their stage or someone else's, idk) and just starts reciting a poem out of nowhere. Then the band had the greatest idea of all time in, rather than telling him to fuck off, ask him to give an extended interview, and the sample is an actual recording of a thing that actually happened in the real world.
And P3 seems to be a beggar woman at the festival asking for "spare change".
That means Blaise Bailey Finnegan III is a real guy, and he seems to have a totally crazy world view in which the world is about to end, and he himself is this great rebel that everyone respects. Mind you that all of this happened over 20 years ago. There's then no way that the anecdote about the speeding ticket is correct; I bet he was rambling almost incoherently, but but in his head he delivered this grand speech and the judge had no reply to his world view.
That means interviewing him is just brilliant because it fits so beautifully into his world view where he's the hero. It's most likely the first time anyone has bothered to do this, which makes it such an amazing document.
But it gets better because at the end of the interview, the band member asks him to recite the poem, and he does -- although I've read that he actually recited a
different poem than the one he originally told on stage. I don't know if it's true; it would make no sense but nothing about this makes sense, so perhaps it is true.
Interviewer: Would you mind reciting your poem for us?
Blaise Bailey Finnegan III: Not at all, I don't see why... I don't see why I couldn't
There's an evil virus that's threatening mankind
It's not state of the art, it's a serious state of the mind
The muggers, the backstabbers, the two faced elite
A menace to society, a social disease
To brainwash the mind is a social disorder
The cynics, the apathy one-upmanship order
Watching beginnings of social decay
Gloating and sneering at life's disarray
Eating away at your own self esteem
Pouncing on every word that you might be saying
To attack someone's mind is a social disorder
The constitution, the government, martial law order
Superficially smiling a shake of the hand
As soon as your back is turned treason is planned
When every good thing's laid to rest
By the governments hate, by the constitution and their lies
And every time you think you're safe
And when you go to turn away
You know they're sharpening all their knives
All in your mind
All in your head
Try to relate it
All in your mind
All in your head
Try to escape it
Without a conscience they destroy
And that's a thing that they enjoy
They're a sickness that's in all of our minds
They want to sink the ship and leave
The way they laugh at you and me
You know it happens all the time
But it only happens in your mind
The rats in the cellar you know who you are...
Or do you?
Watching beginnings of social decay
Interviewer: Thank you for your time
So this poem is... well, it's pretty good, isn't it? I think it is; not that I have any sort of criteria, but it seems to be effective at conveying a certain aesthetic. Also, in the interview, Blaise does say that he's been writing since he was four. So besides being completely delusional, is he actually a genuine poet?
Probably not. Because the poem is an almost 1:1 replica of the lyrics from the song
Virus by Iron Maiden. (Which is pretty bad imo, like the lyrics as a standalone are more interesting than the song, so in some strange way I give Blaise credit ....) There's only a few lines changed to make it about the government, e.g., the
original has this:
When every good thing's laid to waste
By all the jealousy and hate
By all the acid, wit and rapier lies
And every time you think you're safe
And when you go to turn away
You know they're sharpening all their papers knives
So he just memorized this song lyrics, and he's selling it as his own great commentary about the corrupt government.
Another weird wrinkle is that the guy from Iron Maiden who wrote this is called Blaze Bayley, so probably Blaise Bailey Finnegan III is not the actual name of the guy here but just something Godspeed You ... called him? I don't know. My version of the song is just called BBF, various sites on the internet call him Blaise Bailey Finnegan III but idk where the full name comes from or why the Finnegan last name. Also possible that he introduced himself that way... apparently the band sometimes plays extended clips of their samples at live shows.
But that's still not the thing I find most amazing. The thing I find most amazing is that his bit from F#A#∞ about the end of the world is *also* plagiarized from song lyrics. Here's the opening to the song
"A country boy can survive"The preacher man says it's the end of time
And the Mississippi River, she's a-goin' dry
The interest is up and the stock market's down
And you only get mugged if you go downtown
The fact that he turned this into a response that he gave in an interview is endlessly fascinating to me. Like, he adjusted it to fit the situation a little... "you guys gotta be careful walking around here this late at night, this is the perfect place to get jumped"... but the entire thing just doesn't make any sense. Who did the Interviewer think he referred to with the Preacher Man? Did he ask? We don't know how much was cut from the interview...
Also he's plagiarizing both Iron Maiden and some bland whatever country singer ...?!
I think I've learned this over a year ago and I'm still thinking about it periodically. This entire story is so bizarre that only reality could have thought it up.
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Topic: The Necro Wars (Read 356049 times)