I'm listening to Tom Petty's "Don't Come Around Here No More" riding home, and am suddenly struck by the most amusing (to me) idea. Imagine a world in which singer / songwriters had to present their song plan to a panel of staid bankers. Imagine Tom Petty, surly and slouching, sitting before said bankers.
Banker 1: That's it? That's the song idea?
Tom: Yeah.
Banker 2: That makes no sense! Could you explain it again?
Tom: We play some music and periodically say, "Hey!"
Banker 3: That is not a song. People like stories in their songs, like that George Strait guy sings.
Tom: Well, we don't just say, "Hey!" Sometimes we'll say, "Don't come around here no more."
Banker 1: Well that's not even grammatically correct.
Banker 2: Exactly!
Banker 1: Why can't you write lyrics more like a Robert Frost poem?
Banker 3: Or George Strait?
Tom: I just write what I write.
Banker 1: Well, I'm sorry but I just don't see how we can give you money for a song like that.
Banker 3: Why don't you come back some other time with real lyrics?
Banker 2: And a tie.
Tom walks away. Once he's gone, the bankers look at each other and grin in disbelief.
Banker 1: Haha! "Hey!" That's a song?
The bankers laugh.
Banker 3: No, no! "Sometimes we'll say 'don't come around here no more.'"
The bankers begin to laugh so hard they are crying. Gradually, they begin to compose themselves. Finally, wiping tears from their eyes,
Banker 1: Ms. McGill, could you send in our next applicant? Mr. Six-pack supper?
Ms. McGill: That's Tupac Shakur, sir, and yes I will.
6 comments:
Hahahahahahahahah!
I love this. Not only because you used the word "slouching" to refer to Tom Petty. ;)
Slouching mom,
Thank you, thank you. And I did not mean to imply that you were surly.
Nicely done!
Here's my contribution:
"Look, if you can't even spell googol, how do you expect us to invest in your idea?"
Now George Strait is going to have to make an album called Slouching and Surly.
Not that the bank would finance it.
(No, I have no idea what I'm saying.)
Scott,
too funny. "the internet as financed by staid bankers" would be an interesting thought experiment.
Jennifer,
I laughed at what you had written until I reached your parenthetical and realized that I, too, had no idea what you were saying.
That's actually pretty close to how the Japanese music industry operates. Singers hire on with a company, and the company hires songwriters, producers, choreographers, the whole kit and kaboodle.
Are you familiar with Tom Petty's song "Joe" from The Last DJ album? He's not a fan of that system.
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