This song is about all the stuff we involuntarily commit to memory, like random lines from TV and movies, or some of the super-catchy jingles we see in ads. Since I haven’t even done one ska song yet (which is a huge oversight on my part), I also made it a ska-punk song. I never thought I’d write a song that references a talking butt gag from a Jim Carrey movie, but here we are.

The drums are Blasting Room synthesized. The horns are the Session Horns Pro library by Native Instruments. I spent a good chunk of the day on this, but I left sequencing the horns until the end so they’re sparse (only appearing in the two instrumental sections). The guitars and bass came from the DI on the BOSS recorder, and the vocals are done via an SM-58 into the Zoom Recorder.

Lyrics

I want to clap the noise off
Smash my TV and burn my mail
I want to purge the zeitgeist from my mind
But I know that I would fail
You can’t erase the decades
Drilling void culture in your head
So I’m stuck with Diet Coke, Gillette
Oscar Meyer and Big Red
So my cherished memories get pushed
By all the dross that I soak up
‘Till I’m feeling like a vegetable
And my eyes and ears have had enough
This trash culture forms my nightmares
The baggage will never die
This detritus comes uninvited
Their impressions will calcify
When I’m fast asleep is when the uninvited will creep
They’ll suffocate the useful thoughts
And the memories I want to keep

I think of what I learned in high school
It’s eroding every single day  
‘Till there’s nothing left but sitcom quotes
Since my knowledge all slipped away
Watching thirty years of the Simpsons
And memorizing half the lines
Is the surest way to lose the rest
And ensure my cognitive decline
And I wish I could convince my brain
To memorize even one single
To properly store even a single
Phone number of someone I love
Instead of the latest McDonald’s jingle

I tried to clear the haze in a variety of ways
But the cannabis dulled my memories and the alcohol was even worse
Might just crack from all the strain, I need lipo for my brain
Before I fill up all my synapses and start remembering in reverse

And when they put me in a home
Because my memory is defective
I’ll have the last laugh quoting the talking butt
From Ace Ventura: Pet Detective