The writing of the song:
It seems to me as though Karl had these words and we wrote the music together. Sometime around 1995 I think it was, in my Northfield apartment. I like the verse music a lot. On the "bastards" verse for example, the notes we sing are:
b and b over B major
b and c over C Major 7 (which includes both notes)
b and c# over C# Major-minor 7 (which includes both notes)
and then back down
See the brilliance? Try that, Chris and Johnny! (Whoops! I mean Stooooryhillllllllll. Aaaah.) The harmonic and textural shifts are very drastic. The bridge section is more like polished music that would be on the radio. Then we whip back at a breakneck pace into the more goofy punk style for one last double length chorus, in which Karl and I actually transmogrify and become the previously imaginary fake band "Generic Mayhem" simply by singing the words "We're Generic Mayhem!" I couldn't even tell you for sure what key this song is in. It is fun to play and shout and makes me feel better about our relative lack of $ucce$$.
The interpretation of the song:
This song is related to one of our earliest compositions, "Trashing Campus Bands", which never got past the "single improvised recording" stage. We always have thought we were better than bands that get more popular than us whether on the international stage or just playing at the dumb-ass St. Olaf campus festival "Wellstock" sponsored by, of all things, the Wellllnessss comittee.
The music "industry" at any level is not a meritocracy. It's the opposite if anything. This song is about a fake band who are mediocre and also a bunch of jerks. There were and are many bands like that who get very popular at whatever level. They are all worse than us, especially Dave Matthews. Yech!
There are a lot of "hip" people and they are "the kind of guys you almost like until they take you back to their place and then you realize they're living in generic mayhem," that is, a kind of forced, intentionally directionless existence where stuff is judged on being "cool, man" or "hey, not cool." This song is against drugs. It's more generally against poorly thought out behavior that feels rebellious but has actually been thoroughly co-opted and is now stupid. Do the Dew! Yeah, like that.
The "worthless" verse is sort of about how we are worthless too, but that doesn't keep us and some of our friends and family from thinking we are better. But we "hope that no one ever catches on" to the fact that we think all these bad thoughts about ourselves and about other bands. But really, in the words of Hugh Anthony Cregg III (aka Huey Lewis), who cares?
The reason it's the title track for the album is that the concept of the album (if there is one) is to mention a lot of bands we like or don't like and then sort of play like them or imitate one of their songs. Generic Mayhem, Starguise, C.J. Thomas, Zippostale, Punkin' Pie, I in the Sky (an actual note-for-note cover), Velvets, and Doc's Kids' Suite all reference or imitate other bands. The only song that really doesn't fit the concept in any way and is a "pure GUH" song is last month's essay, Buffalo Bill's Grave, which kinda sorta belonged on old man will travel, but was not written when we made that album.
I'm just kidding. We like everybody. It's just a fun, funny song.
Minutae with bullet hyphens:
-The keyboard intro was a last minute thing I did in the studio on my prized Casiotone MT-45 which is now at least 20 years old and still plays pretty good. I was glad that Karl liked it and agreed to leave it on. The last phrase of it is taken from a Moody Blues song off the album Seventh Sojourn, which I was listening to at least a couple times a week at the time. The words of the phrase are "touched by His loving Son" from "You And Me", one of Justin Hayward and Graeme Edge's Christian themed songs.
-I am listening to the Repertoire re-release of Huey Lewis and The News, the eponymous first album because it has that song I mentioned earlier. It is a great CD I got for Christmas this year. Buy it, why don'tcha?. Thank you.
2-1-04 (Yes, I'm late, but I'm missing the super bowl to get this out somewhere near on time, ok?)
Memphis Evans' Essay About Generic Mayhem
Order the CD Generic Mayhem featuring the song "Generic Mayhem"
Read lyrics for Generic Mayhem