Conversation Suicide
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12/13/2008 6:33:37 AM
Are those lyrics to a song V?? I really dig 'em.
If not just beautiful spontaneous poetry, then please direct me to the song, kind V ...
Urr..... I'm sure somebody's already asked you this, but did you ever read Alan Moore's "V for Vendetta" -- or at least see the film.
-NICE bit of verbalage, now I wanna hear 'dat tune it's in......
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Vartan
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12/13/2008 6:40:12 AM
Found it:
Back in 1986, Dan Rather was assaulted while walking on Park Avenue in New York City. His assailant William Tager, now in prison for killing an NBC stagehand outside the Today show in 1994, was sure that the media had him under surveillance and were beaming hostile messages to him, and he demanded that Rather tell him the frequency being used. He kept demanding of Mr. Rather, 'Kenneth, what is the frequency?' as he punched him from behind and knocked him to the ground. William then chased Dan into a nearby building where he kicked him several more times in the back. Nobody is quite sure why he was calling Dan Rather ‘Kenneth’. But he did.
In the summer of 1994, I was 17 years old and about to be a senior in high school. My friend Joe and I went thrift store hunting one sunny day. We were having quite a time of making fun of the many articles of clothing that people had donated to the place, when I came across an interesting work shirt. It was tan with blue shoulders. It had a tag on the upper right breast that read, “Southwest Trucking & Tire Supply Co.” The name tag on the left breast read ‘Kenneth’. A pure coincidence as I hadn’t heard about the story of Mr. Rather’s run-in in Central Park. It fit damn well. I bought it.
Fast forward a few months and REM’s song ‘What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?’ was a big hit on all the kiddy rock stations. So then, whenever I wore my new favorite shirt I kept getting oh so clever remarks like, “Hey……what’s the frequency dude?” or “Yo Kenneth, what’s the frequency?”. So I started telling people, “The Frequency Is V”. And the questions kept coming, so I would tell people about the frequency all the time. I kept saying it so much I ended up writing a song called “The Frequency Is V”. It was a spooky little acoustic piece with lyrics of paranoia, aliens, car crashes, and bazaars. I included it on a tape of songs I had been recording in my basement and passed it out to many of my friends. My friend James was one of the lucky recipients. I had known James since we were both only three years old, and he and I both started writing songs around the same time. We even had a band together called RAY. We would take turns writing the lyrics and music to our songs. If he wrote the words I’d write the music and vice versa.
Well, when I went to college in ‘95, James joined the Marines. We’d write letters back and forth to see how each other was. One letter from James included a poem he had written with me in mind. It was entitled “The V Frequency Show Last Wednesday”. Apparently he had been listening to my old tapes a lot during boot camp and my song “The Frequency Is V” had inspired him. So I did what was only natural, I wrote the music for it. Next time I was at home I ran down to the basement to record it. And of course the song was put on to a new tape of music I had been working on.
Then in 2000, I was living in Brooklyn and working in the city. My most recent band had just lost its drummer. So the guys and I went into the studio to record a bit with me on drums since I could play them pretty well. I also fulfilled my usual duties by doing some guitars and singing. They had all listened to copies of my old tapes and they wanted to do a new version of “The V Frequency Show Last Wednesday”. So we did it. It came out pretty well. So later when we were trying to decide what to call the band, we were listening to the song, and it just made sense to me all of a sudden. My band is V Frequency. I am the V Frequency.
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