One night, long ago, when myself and me brother were both wee lads, I broke his record player.
The fecking thing was driving me crazy.
Every night, it was the same record, by the same band, playing the same songs about the same shite, over and over and over.
And ya know, the whole time, I thought it was the repetitiveness of it that drove me to the brink of insanity, and thereby, drove me to drink even at the wee age of six, and thereby, drove me to break Tally’s record player.
But it wasn’t the repetitiveness itself that got under me skin so deep, no.
It was what the repetitiveness indicated.
Now, it may be true that I am an evil little short-arse, but no one has ever accused me of lacking lust for life.
And variety, well, that’s the spice of life, innit?
And that was precisely the problem.
When a musician’s songs all sound the same, when his record is nothing more than a collection of similarities, where the songs are all about the same topic and nothing else? It’s a lifeless piece of art.
Because life isn’t one note, and it’s not about one ting.
There is a musician who is well known throughout Arcadia, who goes by the name Harry Crotchy Fairplay — you’ve heard of him — and he only ever sings songs about death and dyin.
Cara, if I hear one more feckin song by that bastard, I’m gonna break every feckin record player in Arcadia.
How many times in my life am I gonna have to hear this Harry guy go on and on about death?
Why not a song about feckin a woman and how it feels so good on the pecker?
Why not a song about doing drugs and forgetting to pay the rent in the slums?
Why not a little diddy about falling in love? A tune about fighting in the saloon?
An artist who has lived, aye, truly lived, who knows a feckin ting or two about living — well, he can sing more than just songs about not living anymore.
I suspect that Mr. Crotchy Fairplay and other musical acts like him can only play the same songs because they haven’t lived in a meaningful way.
They haven’t fecked a t’ousand whores in their bootyholes just for fun.
They haven’t stolen from the likes of Blacktooth or fallen in love and lived to tell about it.
They haven’t lived to tell anything at all.
Maybe that’s the true irony of this whole Harry bastard to begin with.
Music, one of the things that make living worth living, being performed by a guy who doesn’t know the first thing about it.
It draws pity from the wellspring of me heart, it does.
Perhaps with a bit of luck, he’ll run into the likes of me, and I’ll kick his arse up and down Arcadia, and then he’ll have something else to sing about.
Leave it to ol’ Knick Knack to change the record.