PERSONAL Song Gets Ripped Apart One Week Too Late
Thursday evening was my last Conservatory class... e-var! As such, it was the last chance we'll have to put up new things in class and get Norm to see them so he'll put them in the show. Things went pretty swimmingly until the end of class, when Norm wanted to talk about one of my songs. Last week, I had two songs in the show: "Race To Win" a rock ballad that Thomas and I wrote about cliched sports sayings; and a song I like to call "Filthy Arabs." Now I know the title is offensive, that's part of the point. The point of the song is that American's of all races have been blanketly racist and just plain ignorant towards Middle Easterners since September the eleventh of 2001. It's a peppy, upbeat tune which I wanted to juxtapose against the vile racism of all the characters (which basically consist of my Conservatory class playing themselves). I, unabashedly, claim that we should "ethnically cleanse the Middle East" during the chorus... and everyone else thinks that's a great idea and then they sing along.
Well, needless to say, the song bombed this past Monday night when we performed it. The audience seemed like they didn't know how to respond... and Jen, the wife of my friend Matt, said that listening to the song was like having someone put a burning cross on your front yard (which I secretly loved hearing [I'm crazy!]). Yes I could say that the song bombed was due to lack of preparation OR I could just as easily say it was due to lack of singing talent... but I think a lot of it was that my ideas weren't fully flushed out. I had a couple good verses like the one about having to "walk my fat, lazy ass" without the Middle Eastern oil/gas (easy rhyme, I know)... but most of the other verses were rhymes I could get to fit in the meter, rather than fully flushed out ideas. I kept waiting for someone to say "I think what you're trying to say here is this" and then giving me feedback, but they didn't. I thank one member of the cast, Matthew, for telling me that he had reservations about his verse. He told me the night OF the performance, but at least he told me beforehand.
But, tonight, Norm started discussing the song as if someone had talked to him about being personally offended by my song. This did upset me a little, but when you stick your neck out, it is more likely to get cut (what?). Regardless, tonight--a month and a half after I sent the song to Norm and performed it for my class (in class... I had to sing it all by myself--scary! Especially since I didn't know whether they'd get it or beat me with sticks)--we FINALLY looked over the actual lyrics and made changes. At first I thought I was upset (could have cried, not going to lie) because we made SO MANY changes to the lyrics and, as such, the song doesn't really say what I wanted it to say anymore. But that's not the reason I'm upset. I'm upset because I kept asking people--begging people--to tell me if they had a problem with the song. "The song won't work," I said at least a dozen times, "unless everyone is comfortable with what it's saying." And, not only did they not tell me, they let me put it UP in front of a PAYING audience before telling me that they weren't comfortable with it. I was so mad at my class afterwards... argh!
Coincidentally, the song is now more about "We're Americans and we're mad and we don't know who to be mad at, so we'll be mad at anyone who's not us"... which is still an okay thing to say--but I wanted this song to say to everyone who heard it "Remember how you treated every Middle Eastern person you've met in the past 5 years? Let's just all come out and admit that we we prejudged them and were racist towards them! Come on! Who's coming with me?" Needless to say, I'm not all that excited about performing this song anymore. At least I still have "Race To Win"... Puttin' it to the top!