Re: About Mr. Folds -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 13:32:26 04/17/08 Thu
Author: CS Holden
Subject: Re: About Mr. Folds
In reply to: j.jackson 's message, "Re: Vying for the victim status" on 05:00:45 04/17/08 Thu

"Bitches Ain't Shit" is an interesting case study of mimetic rivalry, as is a lot of Ben Folds' music. He parodies a style in order that he can surpass it. In this case, he steals rap lyrics, sets them to badass piano music, and gives special verbal attention to such lyrics as "That's some real conversation for your ass." Interesting, too, that the song depicts a young man returning home from jail to find his cousin copulating with his girl. Folds, in his tongue-in-cheek style, over-falsifies the sentiments expressed in the song to show it, as you put it, "for the sham it is." He escapes the "hack" label by showing how conscious he is of his imitation, and by being really good at it.

On the "claiming the victim status" front, Folds does something similar in "One Down":

I'm really not complaining
I realize it's just a job
and I hate hearing bellyaching
rockstars whine and sob
'cause I could be bussin' tables
I could well be pumping gas
yeah, but I get paid much finer
for playing piano and kissing ass

On the album "Supersunnyspeedgraphic" he touches on a lot of what we've discussed in class. "Songs of Love" talks about "Young, uniform minds, in uniform lines / And uniform ties, run round with trousers on fire / And signs of desire they cannot disguise." Songs like "There's Always Someone Cooler than You," "Learn to Live with What You Are," and "Get Your Hands off of My Woman" (originally by The Darkness) all try to unravel mimetic desire, or at least respond to it. The track "Bruised" deals with the reciprocal nature of pain and the blurring of love and hate, with language like, "The world won't turn until something breaks / Who will make the first last mistake."

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