Originally Posted By: bluage
Dear Stefan...

There are songs that conform to so-called "popular" tastes (and nothing's wrong with that, of course), and then, there are songs that drive right through what's considered the "safe" lane, and in doing so, they open up a whole new highway for musical expression.

Stefan, your song, "Life Is Like A Sewer", is the most subversively humorous piece of musical invention I've heard anywhere in, or off this forum for a while. I mean, this is just inspired, off-the-cuff, in-your-face, finger-flipping fun. Your lyrics tell a raucous story about a wildman and a loser who's devil-may-care attitude makes him simultaneously as messy, and yet as sympathetic as Paul Newman's iconic film character, "Cool Hand Luke".

The lyrics would be entertaining even without the music as they so exuberantly celebrate the subject's helplessly self-destructive, yet charmingly clueless, committed and headstrong actions. Through his eyes, life may be a sewer, but he's not afraid to put something into it to see what he can get out of it, even if he ends being covered with muck. That makes him something of an anti-hero, doesn't it?

Your Real Track selections added a tongue-in-cheek flavor to the production that enhanced the fun. Stefan, my friend, your musical world is as entertaining and as unpredictable as as sketch whipped up by an improvisational theatre company.

Three cheers for "Life Is A Sewer" laugh !!!

Grinning large,

LOREN



My dear Loren,

wow, that’s one heck of a comment - I really appreciate the effort you took to work yourself throigh all that weirdness and finally make ends meet. Please believe me: I couldn’t be any more pleased by anything that could have been said, so thanks a lot.

There are two terms you used that made me stop (actually there were more of them, but these are the ones I’d like to refer to): subversive and unpredictable. And although I wouldn’t have ever thought of them, I find myself in that description. Of course, I didn’t come out with subversiveness in ‘real’ life (I’d claim: on the contrary) but there’s always been that little anarchic devil in my fancy.

And unpredictable? I think that this, as well, goes only for song-writing which I always start with writing the lyrics. I pick up a certain phrase, quote, an event or whatever seems funny to me, absurd, maybe even a bit remote, and that little devil starts his work without asking for permussion. And to my own surprise the first video images mostly come to my mind while I’m still chewing over the lyrics. Which may even re-influenbnce the lyrics.

And with BIAB then coming into play I often let myself just drift through the styles. Sometimes I find the style I already had in mind, but sometimes it’s like Torey once wrote here, ‘I have no idea, how I got here.’ ‘

So all in all I can’t even predict myself. And, man, I like it!

Let me thank you once again for a wonderful review and wish you all the very best,

Stefan