We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Valerie Vigoda - This Sucks (from ERNEST SHACKLETON LOVES ME)

from Brown Bag Compilation #1 by Milburn & Vigoda

/

lyrics

Hi I’m Kat
This is my gear
I write music with my pointy violin.
What you should know
About my ax
Is that to play it, first you have to plug it in.
I compose
Modern operas
They're avant garde, groundbreaking and new
Out on the edge of the musical galaxy
Giant mosaics of colors and tones
Pushing the envelope, searching, exploring
Through 3-hour dramas of passion and woe
Cerebral exciting inventive experiments
Maybe attended by 5 or 6 people
Who walk out disgusted before intermission
Proclaiming out loud as they go
“She sucks.”

Yep, they say that loud enough so I can hear it.

I was broke
Completely broke
And in the opera biz I didn't have a prayer
I took a gig
A music gig
Where you don't realize the music's even there
I write the score
For video games
Music for games that hurtle boys through space
Pasty and pimply and gangly teenagers
Paying my rent and my huge student loans
'Cause that's what a master's in music will get you
A backbreaking bloodsucking black hole of debt
And you try and you try not to be just a sellout
You try and you try to be true to your art
And instead I accompany blowups and bleeps
And the blast of an alien jet
This sucks.

Okay, it sucks—so what the hell, I may as well sell my artistic soul in the most epic way possible.

If I have to make music for space
I will not make boring music for space
Typical music for space that fades into the background
Oh, no.
I will make symphonies sweeping and soaring
For each little space cruiser revving and roaring
The score will transport you right out of your chair
Put a chill up your spine and a curl in your hair
And you won't even realize I am the source
Of the pulse-pounding power—but I am the force
The soundtrack within every game-playing boy
The song of their sweat and their pain and their joy
The ecstasy of victory
The agony of defeat
The star captain warrior
Rocketing to my beat
Space Pirates!

That’s the name of the stupid game I’m working on. You’re like Robin Hood or Han Solo flying through the galaxies! And the best thing about all this geeky tech stuff—I don’t need anyone else, I can do it all by my lonesome. So I took the ol’ laptop and plugged in my keyboard and I added an entire string section—
(she does)
And then trumpets!
(she does)
And low soulful brass!
(she does)
And what the hell, some bombast!
(she adds tympani)
Welcome to my symphony, teenage couch potatoes!

Space Pirates!
Space Pirates!
Go forth and find your destiny on every distant shore
You fly against the odds
Immortal as the gods
You fail and then you prevail again
You sail where no one's ever been before

And suddenly
My music is bigger than me
More than me
Better than me

And I can even add more people than me

(in harmony with herself)
More people than me

And I can warn of dangers to come—
(suddenly, through the microphone, she has a deep, commanding man's voice)
"Don't go in there! it's full of mutants!"

I make little boys feel like supermen
The finest and bravest conquering-the-future men
Like Columbus, like Captain Underpants
With courage to carry on in any circumstance
Ponce de Leon, Jacques Cousteau, Ernest Shackleton
Erik the Red, Neil Armstrong, Indiana Jones
Anyone real or not
Who took their shot
And actually had to leave their chair
To see
The world

Now before you think I’m a total sellout here, I’d just like to say that Space Pirates has been beta tested by like 300 gaming teenage freaks, and guess what the freaks’ favorite part of the entire damn game is:

My music!
My music!
My big!
John Williams!
On steroids!
Friggin' music!
So my operas are gathering dust on the shelf
But at least someone hears me aside from myself
My three hundred beta test boys
My three hundred beautiful beta test boys
Maybe one day there'll be three million of 'em
For now there are three hundred boys and I love 'em
Three hundred underage twitchy and pasty-faced fabulous pimply boys
Who think that I don’t suck!

credits

from Brown Bag Compilation #1, released August 27, 2012
written by Brendan Milburn & Valerie Vigoda
from the Joe Di Pietro/Brendan Milburn/Valerie Vigoda musical, "ERNEST SHACKLETON LOVES ME."

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Milburn & Vigoda Los Angeles, California

contact / help

Contact Milburn & Vigoda

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this track or account

Milburn & Vigoda recommends:

If you like This Sucks (from ERNEST SHACKLETON LOVES ME), you may also like: