Magical Internet (2008)
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.
I haven’t had sex in a decade I can’t tolerate the gymastics The bars are all full of those people who’re cool - And if you get tired of the penis I haven’t had sex in a decade The celibate life, or becoming a wife I haven’t had sex in a decade I jog and I cycle for hours Little Anastasia hasn’t eaten in a week “Let me go, let me go, Little Anastasia cried “no-one understands me” “Let me go, let me go, Stacey’s getting thinner Little Anastasia took a bottle full of pills “Let me go, let me go, Stacey’s getting thinner And oh, she is a sinner Little Anastasia went walking to the mall “Let us go, let us go, The weather’s too hot It’s so multicultural And this is why we live in Auckland The traffic’s atrocious The rich folk drive Porsches And this is why we live in Auckland We sneer with contempt Why don’t they just move Yes, everybody come to Auckland Oh sweet crazy cat lady, what will you do? You started with one with an evil-eyed stare But people are harder to have and to hold You gave all your cash to the SPCA You are a responsible owner, of course And every corner of every room And no human being will visit you now Oh sweet crazy cat lady, what will you do? We spend our spare time watching crappy TV History’s past generations We are the anonymous legions In every era, the subjects We’re growing our own secret culture Oh, when I was a younger girl A motorway runs through there now Oh, praise upon the mayors of old A motorway runs through there now Now sometimes in the dark of night A motorway runs through there now Woke up one morning 'bout quarter to eight They took me to the court about half-past ten And the judge walked in Well the judge got spooked and denied me bail Up spoke a gentleman of the press Well, I spent three weeks just stewing away
Sex in a Decade
I haven’t got off in so long
The act was incredibly messy
The partners I chose were incredibly wrong
I’m asked to perform in the sack
I bought seven inches of plastic
The Adult shop won’t take it back
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 go out to eat at the Y
Be ready to talk about feelings all night
And the Indigo Girls till you die
Like nuns in the bad days of old
I will start to hallucinate Jesus
And see if he’ll do what he’s told
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
Except that one time in July
But that was the fault of the absinthe
And a very suggestible guy
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
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
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.
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
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.
She keeps on slipping through
The cracks between her lunch and dinner
So what’s a girl to do?
Posted on her Internet page
The paramedic team broke her door to smithereens
She shouted in a fit of rage:
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.
She keeps on slipping through
The cracks between her lunch and dinner
So what’s a girl to do?
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?
Bought herself some brand new clothes
And down at the graveyard, her boyfriend gave her
A single blood-red rose
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
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
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
The beautiful city of sails
Cause we don’t have the money for Melbourne
And the rest of this country just fails.
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
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
The beautiful city of sails
Cause we don’t have the money for London
And the rest of this country just fails.
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
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
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
Your clothes are all torn, your possessions are few
But twenty-six cats are calling for you
So sad... so sad...
He scratched up your sofa and messed with your hair
Went hunting each night, left his prey every where
Like every man you knew.
They burn with all passion, then freeze icy cold
And your four-legged friends are so sweet to behold
So sad... so sad...
You chose some new friends, and you took them away
And now there are more of them every day
They come from miles around
Compassion extended to all upon paws
Including that black one who's big as a horse
And eats like one as well
Now stinking of urine and shrouded in gloom
'Cause kitties prefer it as dark as the tomb
Light scares the prey away
You barely speak English, more often miaow
The question is what the police will allow
So sad... so sad...
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
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 whitecollar 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
They tore our houses down
And every day I curse the fate
That killed my darling town.
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.
It's jammed most every day
They wrecked the place where I was born
To build a worse decay.
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.
For all eternity
And Satan harvests corporate souls
To fuel his SUV
Terror Alert
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
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 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”
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.
“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”
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?
