Recorded at the 2018 New Music Gathering, Boston, MA, by Howie Kenty (vocals and electronics) and Daniel Pate (percussion).
Let us use his own words to reveal a path that begins with deep insecurity, an insatiable need for validation, and an extreme sense of entitlement. Let us follow it through to the fear, intolerance, and violence that the speaker stokes in many of his followers. If we allow this division to continue, where does this narrative ultimately end?
The salient question for me is how to reveal the toxicity in this nature to those who don’t immediately recognize it; this power lies in inciting latent tendencies. When we each enter this type of exploration, what deep-rooted fears of Other might we find harbored within ourSelves, and crucially, how do we deal with them in our actual interactions?
This piece attempts these challenges by taking quotations as its only compositional seeds, adapting their contours, cadences, and words directly into pitches, rhythms, and text, implementing and re-arranging them to form the entirety of the work. While the audience’s challenge is reflection and considered action, the performer’s is simultaneously more difficult and potentially more alluring; they must possess themself entirely of this visceral, uninhibited id, becoming pure reactive malice, discord, and excitation, unencumbered by contemplation or morality. It’s a remarkably seductive path for everyone, regardless of philosophy.
Burdens of persuasion this tremendous are perhaps impossible for this piece; maybe another desperate scream of absurdity and horror is the only thing realized. Nevertheless, I believe it is a profound moral obligation for each of us to consider these questions and to act on our considerations, deliberately.
LYRICS:
Everybody loves me everybody loves me.
I was with everybody. Everybody loved me.
When I called them, they always treated me well.
I could have gotten anything from anybody.
I get along with everybody. People love me.
I’ve been very successful.
Everybody loves me.
You can do anything. When you’re a star, they let you do it.
You’re a star you’re a star.
A lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there.
We have some bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad people.
Some of them are such lying, disgusting people. I do hate them.
I’ll be honest: I would never kill them. I would never do that.
I get along with everybody. Everybody loved me.
I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue
and shoot somebody
and I wouldn’t lose any voters.
They let you do it.
Everybody loves me. People love me.
I do hate them. Look at the way I’ve been treated lately.
Lying, disgusting people.
They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.
Like the world has never seen, everybody loves me!
You can do anything. When you’re a star, they let you do it.
Full score