Scum and Villainy (part 1)

I'm so unbelievably excited. After all these months, the masters for damidol's first full-length album, Scum and Villainy, are in my possession. All twelve album tracks, fully mixed and mastered, and five B-sides (one original and four covers, three of which include guest vocals by the illustrious Joshua Welch).

In celebration of that, i wanted to post kind of a cheat sheet to all the weird pop-, punk-, nerd-, or internet-culture references i've included in the lyrics, since a lot of it isn't going to be immediately recognizable to the unwashed masses (read: you). Also i like talking about myself. If you haven't figured that one out yet, welcome to my blog.

All lyrics copyright 2011 Trevor Triggs and damidol, by the way, so don't steal this stuff or i'll get a lawyer to beat your larynx with a tire iron until pennies come out.

1. Drinking Gasoline
Open up your throat and take what's coming to you
That aperture is big enough to shove my rock through
Let's share our souls, man, let's share our very essence
All i want's to cop a feel on your presence
Stop trying to save your face, just let it melt
I need you to feel this below your belt
If your genitals are burning, then i'd suggest a cream
My engine's overheating and you are my gasoline

But my friends, you've got to see
That this never really was me
So tonight i'm laying off the alcohol
And drinking gasoline

I've got a lot of opinions, but no one wants to hear them
I'm sick of angry songs, they bore me into a delerium
Why are the 80s back? Weren't they bad enough the first time?
I've gotta shape this world into something that i can call mine
I'll say 'genitals' again because it feels so right
But i wanna write music that nobody else will like
So pass me that guitar, and i'll play some shit for you
When the rock reaches your stomach, your doctor won't know what to do

After drinking all my fears
And damaging my ears
I sure could use a little ambisol

--

Drinking Gasoline is one of the oldest damidol songs in our repertoire. I wrote the original version in 2005, and it's been killed and resurrected by every lineup since then (so, about four times). We brought it back this time after recording for the album actually began. I played the guitar riff for the guys once, and then we played through it as a band twice, and then went straight to recording it immediately after that. I think it turned out rather nicely. But this time, i decided that the original lyrics were terrible, and they got almost completely rewritten. The two choruses are the same, and a couple of other lines, but it's mostly new.

Lines 3 and 4 in the first verse are a reference to an old damidol song called Roy Orbison is Rolling in His Grave. We stopped playing it after Natalie exited the band, and she took the song sans lyrics to her new band, Venus in Furs. Bob and i agree that they play it better anyway. Line 5 is a reference to another Natalie-era damidol song, Face Melter, which we quit playing after our third or fourth show without her.

As for the thing about the 80s, if you haven't noticed that 2011 is shaping up to be the return of that despicable decade, you need to walk around a college campus for about 15 minutes when it's warm outside. You'll be horrified.

2. I Don't Care if You're Still Drunk
I do not care if you're still drunk
I do not care if you're still drunk
I do not care
If you're still drunk

Oh god, i feel like i'm drowning backwards
It's coming up instead of going down
So pour me another mixed in equal parts
I'll contain myself with another round

I don't really feel
That it's a big deal
I had a good meal
Before i came to you

Give me a bigger cup
You gotta fill it up
With a good dollop
Of your strongest booze

Remember the time that we played at the Wisco
and somebody pooped right in the sink?
It was our first CD release show
That was my favorite time, yeah, i think

It's so hard to be a polka band
But in Wisconsin, that's all we've got
So won't you line up those shots for me?
You know that i like this quite a lot.

--

Yeah, it's mostly about drinking, but there's a bunch of stuff in there about being a band, too. Which generally involves drinking. And i used the word dollop. I'll let you decide if i gain or lose points for that.

The second verse is a true story. When we played at the Wisco for the release party for our EP William Shatner's Pecs in 2009, somebody took a dump on the sink in the women's bathroom.

"It's so hard to be a polka band" was an alternate lyric for the old damidol song Denial (circa 2004). On the recording (from the Meaning of Life EP, 2004) the line is "I watched denial slip away," but live, i had about four lines that i rotated between. I was glad for an opportunity to reuse this one. One of the others, which i should probably get into a song again at some point, was "Don't smoke crack any more...than you have to."

3. Pukeflower
Get out of my beautiful garden!
I cultivate a better kind of plant
You weren't born a Rose and you can't fool me
Flowers don't wear such ugly pants

A Rose by any other name
Would not make the other flowers puke
You smell so goddamn bad that i'm ashamed
I'd be associated with you

Stay out of my beautiful garden!
To me, you are just a weed
You're a rose, but with no petals
Adorned with thorns to make me bleed

I thought i told you to get out of my garden!
It's not so beautiful anymore
Now i'm gonna have to burn the whole damn thing
Thank the gods you never had a chance to spore

--

This song is a heavy-handed metaphor for the most useless human being i've ever encountered, a co-worker whose name you can probably guess. She's a dirty hippie. She smells terrible, has no work ethic, has a voice like nails on a chalkboard, and never never ever never ever shuts the fuck up. She wasn't born with the name Rose, she legally changed it at some point in her 20s or 30s, and she truly does wear ugly pants. Also, that last line should have been "I'll thank any god you never had a chance to spore" but that was a bit too clunky; truly, though, she never did procreate, which i believe to be evidence of the existence of a merciful god.

4. Stalker
I'm in the van across the street, i'm watching you change
I show i care by masturbating to your Facebook page
Yesterday, i waited for three hours, you weren't at home
My better fantasies involve you arriving not alone

Now that i've been keeping statistics on your hiccups, i've found that it only happens on weekends
I went through your garbage looking for old panties because, to survive, i know that i will need them
I looked through your window because i thought you were putting in a tampon but it turned out to be your grandma and her depends
And if you'd give me a chance, all i want is to be friends

Thursday, i saw your boyfriend; my dick is bigger than his
I think he's gay, i can tell by the way he takes a whiz
I bought you better birthday presents (than him) but couldn't give them to you
They're in the van in a box, next to my bucket of poop

You've got the prettiest teeth
That i have ever seen on a human
This story has no end
I'm waiting for you to invite me out of the van
Thinking of you is all i ever want to do
You make me fuzzy down to my spleen
Why does everybody think it's a problem
I'm 45 and you're not quite 18?

I see you

--

Yeah. Um...yeah. You know, there really isn't any way to explain this song. I had come up with a truly sleazy-sounding guitar riff and all i could think to do with it was to put the creepiest possible lyrics over it. Maybe one of the reasons i don't want children is because i know that someday, they'd hear this song.

The second line was "MySpace page" originally. Even though Facebook was already overtaking MySpace at the time i wrote this song, a Facebook page was pretty well locked down to outsiders at that time. Since Facebook's privacy policy has become practically nonexistent in the last two years, though, i felt it was appropriate to update the song for the times.

The line about hiccups was something that Tonya, the photographer who did our promo shots for William Shatner's Pecs, actually said while on the shoot, except in first person rather than third. If you replace "your" with "my," this is her quote verbatim. I thought it was beautiful, so i stole it. She approved.

Also, who hasn't pooped in a bucket to avoid leaving their van once in a while?



I think i'm gonna cut this short here, actually, because it's taking way longer to type all this out than i thought it would and i've got other things i need to be getting done. I'll do the other 8 songs later.