Very, very occasionally, I feel inspired by modern music. It’s rare, but it does happen. Of course, by ‘modern’ in this context, I do in fact mean that the original song was released in 1983, but that’s modern enough for me.A friend gave me a copy of Mayzie Rathbone’s autobiography, She Works Smart For the Money. Janine is always trying to make me more of a ‘normie’; it came with a note saying that one day, I could stop composing music on a guitar missing half of its strings, and weaving dresses from beads, and maybe I could be meeting with a buyers advocate company just like her. Oh, she’s always going on about her ‘property portfolio’. I try to explain that I’ve transcended this mortal realm, and I have no need of housing but I kind of do but I don’t, but Janine keeps trying to fix what isn’t broken.
Anyway, I read a few pages, and the contents angered me so greatly that I just had to write a song. This girl goes on and on about how she was a smart worker, and that being smart and worldly-wise eventually made her a great fortune which she now spends on buying homes. Ugh…the capitalism and materialism. All my least favourite ‘ism’s, with spiritualism being my favourite.
So this led to me creating a vicious song lyric duel, with a piece entitled Why Do Work for the Money?
‘She worked hard for the money,
She bought lots of honey,
But now she’s not so funny,
Just go meditate, that’s right.”
It’s a lot more scathing than my regular fare, but I feel that it’s justified in this case. And it’s not a hit piece, by any means…the property advocate services in Melbourne can go and do whatever they like, live their lives, all of that. No, my scathing, powerful, scathing and powerful lyrics are aimed at this one woman in a book that a friend gave me, who will never see or hear them. But it’s cathartic, darn you!
-Deirdre