Written and recorded entirely in the month of February for the RPM Challenge '08. Originally titled "Auxiliary Choir". Buy it here, or listen to it in full here.
Original liner notes:
The best thing about a comedy gig is that they're actually listening to the words, and my words have always been the pivot around which my music has rotated. However, once we had reached the limits of what the Anastasia songs, ludicrous electro-punk covers of heavy metal songs and "stunt keyboarding" could do for us, we realised we had to write some more songs which could get a lyrical point across in an amusing manner. And the RPM challenge was as good an excuse as any.
This disk is being issued under the name of the "Vostok Lake Auxilliary Choir" to emphasise that this is NOT the long-awaited first Vostok Lake album. "Small Group Psychosis" is still being recorded, and it will contain far fewer flubbed notes, mumbled lyrics and other production oddities, as well as being significantly less "minimalist". This album was written for the comedy gigs, and recorded at breakneck speed, and in that sense is a snapshot of only part of what Vostok Lake does - the album proper will be more well rounded.
I hope you enjoy. It doesn't really sound like Vostok Lake, in fact in places it barely sounds like music at all... but I think it sounds like a good time.
Sex in a Decade
I haven’t had sex in a decade
I haven’t got off in so long
The act was incredibly messy
The partners I chose were all wrong
I can’t tolerate the gymastics
I’m asked to perform in the sack
I bought seven inches of plastic
The Adult shop won’t take it back
The bars are all full of those people who’re cool -
Or at least think they are - everywhere
I’d rather stay in with my internet friends
Than wash someone's grease out of my hair
And if you get tired of the penis
And go out to eat at the Y
Be ready to talk about feelings
And the Indigo Girls till you die
I haven’t had sex in a decade
Like nuns in the bad days of old
I will start to hallucinate Jesus
And see if he’ll do what he’s told
The celibate life, or becoming a wife
These things I have never considered
I can’t understand it, I’d lower my standards
If I had the damn things to begin with
I haven’t had sex in a decade
Except that one time in July
But that was the fault of the absinthe
And a very suggestible guy
I jog and I cycle for hours
Or else I get tense as a spring -
If I don’t find the energy
Don’t let it get to me
I’ll never have sex
Cause it’s just too complex
And then I’d have nothing to sing.
Thinner
Little Anastasia hasn’t eaten in a week
She’s reaching for the other side
Her mind’s like a needle that’s impossible to seek
The spirits of the books are her guide
“Let me go, let me go, My life is mine to show
I now reject this planet
All my enemies can cram it”
But they’ll never let Stacey go, Oh no,
This town will never let her go.
Little Anastasia cried “no-one understands me”
Or knew how badly she’d been hurt
Her dad was so upset, that he just broke down and let
Her wear the vinyl corset and the fishnet skirt
“Let me go, let me go,
My life is mine, you know,
I now reject this planet
All my enemies can cram it”
But they’ll never let Stacey go, Oh no,
Your parents will not let you go.
Stacey’s getting thinner
She keeps on slipping through
The cracks between her lunch and dinner
So what’s a girl to do?
Little Anastasia took a bottle full of pills
Posted on her Internet page
The paramedic team broke her door to smithereens
She shouted in a fit of rage:
“Let me go, let me go,
My life is mine to show
I now reject this planet
All my enemies can cram it”
But they’ll never let Stacey go,
Oh no, They’ll never let Stacey go.
Stacey’s getting thinner
She keeps on slipping through
The cracks between her lunch and dinner
So what’s a girl to do?
And oh, she is a sinner
Her world is of intolerable pain
Oh, she’s getting thinner
She won’t believe in God
And someone stole her I-pod
How can you ask her to remain?
Little Anastasia went walking to the mall
Bought herself some brand new clothes
And down at the graveyard, her boyfriend gave her
A single blood-red rose
“Let us go, let us go,
Our place is down below
We now reject this planet
And those idiots can cram it”
But a suicide pact Isn’t quite a private act
When your friends break in
And they drag you off again
Because your friends will never let you go
Oh no, we will never let you go.
The Auckland National Anthem
The weather’s too hot
And the weather’s too wet
And the buildings are leaky
Not remedied yet
And we’re ruled by a council
That’s warped and insane
Who we voted for last time
And will do again
It’s so multicultural
Open till late
But we hate and fear people
Whose English ain't great
We worry our town
Will turn into Shanghai
We want to pretend That it’s still ‘59
And this is why we live in Auckland
The beautiful city of sails
Cause we don’t have the money for Melbourne
And the rest of this country just fails.
The traffic’s atrocious
Makes us rip out our hair
But we still persist taking
Our cars everywhere
And the crime is pernicious
Young people these days
Are savages, lurking With murderous gaze
The rich folk drive Porsches
Up volcanic hills
The poor folk in gullies
Are blamed for their ills
The white trash out Westwards
Cause us distress
The brown folks down South
Have to clean up our mess
And this is why we live in Auckland
The beautiful city of sails
Cause we don’t have the money for London
And the rest of this country just fails.
We sneer with contempt
At those south of Bombay
Those ignorant rednecks
Just wasting away
Our city’s superior
Second to none
We’d boast of its virtues
If we thought of one
Why don’t they just move
To some tiny cell
In a motorway suburb
Of our private hell?
We’ll move to Orewa
To give them some room
And if they come closer
Then we’ll just keep moving
Yes, everybody come to Auckland
The beautiful city of sails
If you don’t have the money for Queenstown
Cause the rest of this country just fails.
Crazy Cat Lady
Oh sweet crazy cat lady, what will you do?
Your clothes are all torn, your possessions are few
But twenty-six cats are calling for you
So sad... so sad...
You started with one with an evil-eyed stare
He scratched up your sofa and messed with your hair
Went hunting each night, left his prey every where
Like every man you knew.
But people are harder to have and to hold
They burn with all passion, then freeze icy cold
And your four-legged friends are so sweet to behold
So sad... so sad...
You gave all your cash to the SPCA
You chose some new friends, and you took them away
And now there are more of them every day
They come from miles around
You are a responsible owner, of course
Compassion extended to all upon paws
Including that black one who's big as a horse
And eats like one as well
And every corner of every room
Now stinking of urine and shrouded in gloom
'Cause kitties prefer it as dark as the tomb
Light scares the prey away
And no human being will visit you now
You barely speak English, more often miaow
The question is what the police will allow
So sad... so sad...
Oh sweet crazy cat lady, what will you do?
You’ll die all alone and remembered by few
And twenty-six cats will all feast upon you
So sad, so sad, so sad.
Songs of My People
We spend our spare time watching crappy TV
Or swapping cute pictures of cats
We work for far less that we thought we were worth
But we try not to dwell upon that
We work in a white-collar office based world
It’s harder to do than you’d think
I’ll sing you the songs of my people
And maybe you’ll buy me a drink.
History’s past generations
All had their manner of song
They kept up their spirits in mines and plantations
In rhythm the working day long
The rhythm today is the clack of the keys
And the groans as computers break down
I’ll sing you the songs of my people
And maybe you’ll buy me a round.
We are the anonymous legions
Who keep the whole show on the road
In retail, we handle the money
The call centres handle the load
They keep us so far separated
But Telecom keeps us all joined
I’ll sing you the songs of my people
And maybe you’ll throw me a coin.
In every era, the subjects
Portrayed in the popular song
Are similar – sex, drugs and violence
And how that mean ex did you wrong
And what you would do to the people in charge
If ever you got off your knees -
I’ll sing you the songs of my people
On topical themes such as these.
We’re growing our own secret culture
Distributed over the Net
Don’t tell them we’re planning a breakthrough
We don’t want to spill the beans yet
The media don’t tell our stories
The papers won’t say we exist
So I’ll sing you the songs of our people
And maybe you’ll give me a kiss.
A Motorway Runs Through There Now
Oh, when I was a younger girl
I dwelt in houses old and rotten
A relic of a gentler world
By time and taste and funds forgotten
We worked and fought and loved so sweet
These things the traffic won't allow -
Don't bother trying to find those streets
A motorway runs through there now
A motorway runs through there now
They tore our houses down
And every day I curse the fate
That killed my darling town.
Oh, praise upon the mayors of old
Who sniffed the fumes one time too many
Our trains and buses wrecked and sold
To Big Oil for a tiny penny
All glory to the private car -
For profit's sake, the sacred cow
The concrete covers Shangri-La
A motorway runs through there now.
A motorway runs through there now
It's jammed most every day
They wrecked the place where I was born
To build a worse decay.
Now sometimes in the dark of night
You're cruising at 100 k's
You'll see a ghostly suburb rise
And shimmer in the petrol haze
The hungry ghosts of streets destroyed
Behold their murderers, and vow
To drag you to the gaping void...
A motorway runs through there now.
A motorway runs through there now
For all eternity
And Satan harvests corporate souls
To fuel his SUV
Terror Alert
Woke up one morning 'bout quarter to eight
There were twenty-two cops standing at my gate
They said they'd come to get me on a terror alert
They took away my computer
And my tino rangatiratanga shirt
They took me to the court about half-past ten
There were twenty-five people all making a din
They said they didn’t buy that crap about a terror alert
But then I fell down the stairs
And the cops made sure that it hurt.
And the judge walked in
And the police said
“This no-account terrorist wants us all dead
Planning mass destruction and all that what-have-ya
We got the evidence on our candid camera”
Well the judge got spooked and denied me bail
So they threw my goddamn carcass in Mount Eden Jail
And like the old song says, time keeps dragging on
But the trains keep on rolling
On out to Henderson.
Up spoke a gentleman of the press
“The cops are right and I wish them success
The boys in blue have a duty to save us
From anything more radical than voting Labour”
Well, I spent three weeks just stewing away
Till the solicitor-general had the nerve to say
It was all just a “false alarm” on the terror alert
But what I want to know
Is where we're gonna go
If they can throw you in the pokey
With no evidence to show
And when will they give back my tino rangatiratanga shirt?
Thank You Magical Internet
A lovely Nigerian fellow
Wrote just the other day
To ask for the use of my bank account
To stash his ill gotten gains
And I, being young and impulsive
Said sure, here's my number, have fun
And trusted the magical Internet
Sure it was good what I'd done
Now my bank account's packed with Nigerian gold
I own seven cars and a yacht
So thank you, magical Internet
For all of the wealth that I got.
A lovely Ukrainian lady
Wrote just the other day
She said she was lonely and wanted to marry
Someone from far away
Well, thanks to the Civil Union laws,
It seemed quite a plausible dare
So I trusted the magical Internet
And I sent her some bucks for the fare
So now the most beautiful girl in Kiev
Does all of my cooking and cleaning
Oh, thank you, magical Internet
For giving my life true meaning.
I got a penis extension
They wrote just the other day
They promised twelve inches of rock hard erection
Oh, what will your girlfriend say?
Considering I was a woman before
I was skeptical right to the end
But thanks to the magical Internet
I have a new best friend
Now I have a wanger that's truly fantastic
Though I get funny looks on the street
Oh thank you, magical Internet
For making my life complete.
My Humble Curse
Queen of the Angels
Queen of the May
Queen of the Harpies
Take them away.
Don’t want to be here
Working for pay
Future utopia
Take them away.
Boils and diseases
Rain on the boss
Fire in the boardrooms
Who’ll give a toss?
Idiot managers
Will rue the day
Boiling their eyeballs
Take them away.
Bogus religions
Rip out the cash
Fake politicians
Pack glass in the gash
Fascists and fundies Every which way
Death and damnation
Take them away.
Pure exploitation
Rules in our lives
Generals and presidents
Sharpen their knives
I’m not a puppet
To dance in their play
I’ve had enough of it
Take them away.
Liars and mindfixers
Poison the well Flunkies and junkies
Hiding the smell
Of murders, atrocities
Social decay
It’s quite enough for me
Take them away.
I’m not a psychopath
I’m not insane
I only speak for
The subconscious brain
I bet you’ve all thought in
Exactly this way
Say it along with me:
“Take them away.”
One day you’ll see me
Queen on a throne
Hands on the button
Feet on the bone
Armies and legions
All hear me say:
“Give us utopia
Take them away.”