1994 - Better Known as Burma

This is probably the strangest song on the album. It also happens to be the oldest. The main structure (everything but the scratching) was all put together way back when we still lived in Hattiesburg. It was one of the last two things I worked on there; the second being “When Will Then Be Now?”. It's made up of snippets from the Sonic Youth song “Shadow of a Doubt” off EVOL. Then some very subtle use of a piece from Mission of Burma's “Trem Two” off VS. And by subtle I mean even now I can't remember specifically what was sampled and where it was placed, but I do remember using that record for something.

The song's like this: first you have to remember that the whole thing should play out in your mind as shadowplay (if you need an example of it, check out the embedded video underneath the lyrics, the stuff is absolutely breathtaking). Everything transpires on a rickety old sailing ship, imagine something similar to a Chinese junk. A man and a woman are trapped on this boat with a madman who has the power to twist reality anyway he wants. Like Q, from ST:TNG, only much more pissed off, and sounding eerily similar to Shao Kahn. He begins a process of twisting her like a towel, and thus stirring her words in a circle, then proceeds to stealing the male's vowels. He folds the man origami-style into a samurai helmet which the maniac promptly places upon his head. He wrings the girl out like a dish rag, twisting her until she's as long as the ship's deck and thin as a no. 9 spaghetti noodle. He bends her into a two-dimensional outline rendering of a mockingbird and promotes her to first-mate. Off they sail into the blue moonset.

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Better Known As Burma

What's Wrong with me?

Why do I sound Funny?

HA HA HA HA HA

Xcs m Ls... Ls

HA HA HA HA HA

::chirping, or “cheeping”::

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Originally Posted Sunday, December 30, 2007