Flavor of the Explanation
Flavor of the week was originally called "MTV", but I changed it because I didn't want to give MTV any free publicity nor any reason to sue me
(not that they would sue a small time artist like me).
The core of the song came from a line that my brother, Kevin, mentioned to me. "MTV wants me to fight a revolution, just as soon as they find a sponsor." I took that and added "for the show" for rhyming and rhythmical purposes. (go ahead.. try rhyming "sponsor" in a pop song. Tonsure doesn't work to well does it?) The rest of the chorus kinda formed itself.
At the same time that Kevin had that line, I had the line "Butter-Side down is in" Butter Side down refers to "The Great Butter Battle", by Dr. Seuss. In the book, two peoples, who are virtually identical, called the Yooks and the Zooks, end up fighting a terrible conflict over which is right: eating toast Butter Side up or Butter Side down. It was a Seussian take on the Cold War.
In using the line, I wasn't trying to invoke images of nuclear stockpiles, just of a completely arbitrary system.
To further complicate things, the line "who did you plagiarize this time dear" I stole directly from "Love is a Dead Language" by Chagall Guevara, a now sadly-defunct band headed by one of my all time favorite artists, Steve Taylor. I thought the irony of plagiarizing a line about plagarism would be amusing to the 2 people who would get it. (Of course, now that I've explained it...)
The chorus to this was finished very shortly after Kevin gave me the line, and I played it for my then guitar teacher, Jerry Oliver. He told me I should record it as soon as possible so that I could reap the ironic rewards of making tons of money with a pop single aimed against MTV. It's taken me over 2 years to do so, which is about average for most of my songs. Sorry Jer!
Flavor of the Week
Butter Side Down is In this year
All the hollow men begin to cheer
Who did you plagiarize this time, dear
Now that your make-up is your career
This box is packed so let's bring the noise
Some flash for the girls and skin for the boys
Keep your eyes peeled on our decoys
Don't try to think, just play with your toys
MTV Wants Me to fight a revolution
just as soon as they find a sponsor for the show
Next week's fad's become an institution
you can skip this dance, baby
I wont go!
The denominator's not low enough
and we haven't begun to show enough
Changing your mind is not that tough
As long as we keep selling this stuff
Flavor of the Week - MP3 128k
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