With all this flarf talk, I’ve been paying extra attention
to random sayings, lyrics, and Google search results and looking for poetic
inspiration in each and every word. You know when you get a song stuck in your
head and it just kinda stays there for a couple days? And it’s usually just a
phrase or a line that sticks with you? Well, this song seems to play every time
I’m in my car, and I just love it. The words make me feel and think and
basically extract the same reaction from me that poetry does. I’ve been trying
to find a way to turn this song into a flarf poem, but I’m just not there yet.
Until I figure it out, I really just want to share it with you guys.
Here are the lyrics:
Mr. MTV by Nothing More
Free drugs, cheap sex
Fake tans, big breasts
High times, pimped rides
Lost days to blackout nights
I need this, I need that
I’m not complete with what I have
If I do this, if I buy that
I’ll get mine, I’ll get mine
I want, I want, I want…
Empty me, empty nation
Empty us of inspiration
Bastard sons and broken daughters
All bow down to our corporate father
In in iLife, in my iWorld
On my iPhone, with my iGirl
Just one bite to understand
Even Eve couldn’t live without the iPlan
I need it
Do this, buy that
Get my drugs and sex
More drugs, want sex, need sex
MTV, MT-nation
MT-us of inspiration
Bastard sons and broken daughters
All bow down to our corporate father
And here’s the music video:
I guess what adds more layers to this song, for me, is how
it begins. It steals the line “I want my MTV” from Dire Straits Money for Nothing. When I was a kid, my
dad must have played that song every time we were driving somewhere, whenever
he was doing something around the house, and every time he took us camping.
When I hear that song, I’m instantly taken back to when I sported scraped knees
and tangled hair. And it seems to me that when that song was big, life seemed
simpler. I was a kid and the livin’ was easy. Now, it’s taken on a whole new
meaning. It highlights our society and everything that’s wrong with it, much
like Sharon Mesmer’s Annoying Diabetic
Bitch does. This song perfectly parallels my childhood with my adulthood.
Things are much more complicated now, and life has a habit of getting messy. Is
it worth it though? Absolutely.
now you just got me head-singing Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies by Weird Al, but maybe that song is another fine example of a (pseudo) mash-up, like some flarf, as i mentioned in a comment on your post above. i'd suggest a mash-up of Mr MTV and MfN/BH, but a mash-up using a faux mash-up might be a double negative! but maybe not! check out this slightly involved and potentially very risky (risqué) flarfesque technique: what if you Google image searched each line from the song, copied one of the first coupla images into a document, then responded to the pictures, either simply describing their content or using them as looser inspiration... i suspect each line would work independently, but there's the possibility of freaky coincidence and genuine surprise. and you could even use the results as a first draft to edit as much as you'd like. too many steps? it's actually pretty fun because you've got a bit more control than other experiments! that's all i got at the moment, sorry! and good luck!
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