Comments on: Affording Good Beheadings

By: Affording Good Beheadings by cortex

Affording Good Beheadings by cortex — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 05:05:56 +0000

[...] is a song I wrote in late August, for bingo’s Revolving Floor project. I started from the naked gimmick of trying to re-use the word “seconds” in the [...]

By: Affording Good Beheadings by cortex | Be A Star Online

Affording Good Beheadings by cortex | Be A Star Online — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 02:14:59 +0000

[...] Good Beheadings by cortex MeFi Music This is a song I wrote in late August, for bingo’s Revolving Floor project. I started from the naked gimmick of trying to re-use the word “seconds” in the [...]

By: Tara

Tara — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:17:11 +0000

I thought that the lover had died, even committed suicide, and that's how she stole the time, without any consenting.

By: Rachel B

Rachel B — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 01:27:01 +0000

I'm intrigued by pronoun choice in “all the time you stole from us.” assuming it's directed at the other lover. It's such an intensely personal perspective–such that I wonder if you could ever actually say that to another person and mean it. After all: how can “you” take time from “us” without the other partner somehow consenting?

Unless there is another “You” who's not in the relationship. In which case, ignore all above. But it's still interesting that “we” lost and “you” took. I could go on–either way, fascinating word choices here.

I thought the whole song was great…wonderful sound…words aside.

By: Josh Millard

Josh Millard — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 14:39:27 +0000

I (hazily) agree with your years-not-months analysis, fwiw. I don't think it's quite concrete, but it feels like it should be years, however many there were.

The way that line came about, I was playing around with temporal quantifiers and seeing how I could work all these different common units into the lyrics, specifically in that final verse where what had been more momentary/episodic recollections earlier became a sort of flurry of more precise but less specific accounting. And I had years and weeks and hours and seconds spoken for, and months nowhere to be found, and so it happened.

The ambiguity there has been itching at me ever since, but I have a habit of chewing unhappily on lyrics for a long time without actually fixing them and just ending up feeling put out without getting anywhere. So when problems don't solve themselves quickly, I tend to just let 'em go and call it done.

I am a recent fan of Daniel Johnston, yeah; I was introduced to him by my good friends The Harvey Girls when I was playing with them, and last year I recorded a cover of True Love Will Find You In The End.

By: Richard Zeroth

Richard Zeroth — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 00:09:59 +0000

epic and passionate arguments is what I meant to say

By: Richard Zeroth

Richard Zeroth — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 00:08:34 +0000

Song reminds me a little of Daniel Johnston. Not sure if you like his stuff or not but it's definitely meant as a compliment.
I'm curious as to your choice of 'months' in love and 'months' in struggle instead of 'years' as I (perhaps incorrectly) assumed these folks had spent many years together – possibly having epic and passionate in their gaudy asian themed decorated apartment over when to have dinner.
At any rate, I thought the song was great.

By: Michael Bennett Cohn

Michael Bennett Cohn — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 00:07:36 +0000

The phrase that is really going to stick with me (and that I've already starting singing it to myself a few times) is “…and the turkey that you warned me would be too dry/was too dry.”

So much universal experience packed into that detail.