Jealousy in Three Acts

By: DThompson | in: Music |

jealousy-in-three-acts031

I’ve been making a “best of the 2000’s” set of CDs for my brother’s wife and ended up with a large handful of sunny sounding alternative (or alternative-ish) pop songs whose lyrics were anything but. At the same time I received an e-mail from Kendal asking me what I knew about rock operas and the whole thing got me to thinking that these songs I had were really on a theme, even though they were from different years and by different artists. I thought maybe it would be fun to see if I could construct a narrative out of them, create a fictional rock opera of my own.

This is what I came up with. A (rather lame, in my opinion) “plot” about three roommates, two guys and a girl, one guy (let’s call him “the hero”, even though he’s pretty much a big stupid jerk) meets the girl of his dreams at a singles bar, but then dumps her while the other is in love with the female roommate who won’t give him the time of day. After The Hero dumps his first girlfriend the Female Room-mate realizes she loves him, which is all a bit much for The Other Roommate (who’s already been entertaining murderous thoughts), He ends up killing The Hero for being casual about love, and the Female Roommate for spurning him.

It’s a great big happy world we live in! The list of songs goes like this:

INTRODUCTION
The Legends - The Kids Just Wanna Have Fun [A kind of ironic commentary on the events to come, few of which are fun.]

ACT I - SCENE i - THE APARTMENT
The Hero: Paolo Nutini - New Shoes [Lonely, the Hero decides to get dressed up and find love at the local singles night club.]
The Male Roommate: The Hippos - Wasting My Life [The Roommate professes his unhappiness with being in love with a woman (The Female Roommate), who doesn't love him back.]
The Female Roommate/ The Roommate: The Dollyrots - Because I’m Awesome [The Female Roommate explains why she has no feelings for The Roommate and he tells her how great she is anyway.]

ACT I - SCENE ii - THE NIGHT CLUB
The Hero: *The New York Dolls - Dance Like A Monkey [The Hero expresses his dissatisfaction with what it takes to attract women.]
The Roommate: Linus Of Hollywood - Do You Know What I’m Thinking [The Roommate only has eyes for The Female Roommate and broods that if she knew what was in his head she would like him even less.]
The Female Roommate: The Pipettes - Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me [The Female Roommate once again explains to The Roommate that she doesn't return his feelings.]
The Roommate: Passenger - Night Vision Binoculars [The Roommate enters stalker territory.]

ACT II - SCENE i - THE APARTMENT
The Hero:Teenage Fanclub - I Need Direction [Unsuccessful in his search, The Hero gets drunk and tries to figure out what's going wrong.]

ACT II - SCENE ii - THE NIGHT CLUB
The Girlfriend: Madison Avenue - Who The Hell Are You? [The Hero's future girlfriend is at firs unimpressed with him.]

ACT II - SCENE iii - THE APARTMENT
The Hero: Fountains Of Wayne - The Girl I Can’t Forget [The Hero now realizes he's in love.]
The Roommate: Jellyfish - He’s My Best Friend [Though consumed with jealousy, The Roommate reminds himself of his close friendship with The Hero.]
The Roommate: Fastball - You’re An Ocean [Once again, The Roommate declares his obsessive love for The Female Roommate.]
The Female Roommate: Macy Gray - Relating To A Psychopath [She tries to tell The Roommate he shouldn't love her because she's crazy. Which isn't true, but by now The Roommate is creeping her out and she's getting desperate enough to try the old "insanity runs in my family" ploy.]
The Hero: Eugene Edwards - It Doesn’t Get Better Than This [The Hero, consumed by love for his new Girlfriend, takes no notice of the problems brewing between his friends.]

ACT III - SCENE i (THREE MONTHS LATER)
The Hero: (The Real) Tuesday Weld - Kix [The Hero, who proclaimed he would love The Girlfriend "forever", is already losing his feelings for her.]

The Girlfriend: Brassy - Work it Out [The Girlfriend thinks the relationship can be salvaged.]

The Hero: The Magnetic Fields - I Don’t Believe You [The Hero, insecure, convinces himself that she doesn't love him anymore.]
The Roommate: The Format - Time Bomb [The Roommate begins to take the actions of those around him personally. He resolves to "fall in love with the next woman he sees", but then acknowledges that he may be close to losing his sanity.]

The Girlfriend: Dressy Bessy - Just Once More [The Girlfriend wants to make love to The Hero one more time, she hopes this will salvage their
relationship.]

The Hero: (The Real) Tuesday Weld - (Still) Terminally Ambivalent Over You [The Hero still feels he's fallen out of love.]

The Roommate: The Wallflowers (with Elvis Costello) - Murder 101 [The Roommate first begins entertaining thoughts of killing The Female Roommate, for spurning him, or The Hero, for throwing love away.]

ACT III - SCENE ii (ONE WEEK LATER)
The Hero: The Decemberists - Days Of Elaine [Even though he instigated the breakup with the Girl Of His Dreams, The Hero mopes over
how great it was when she was around.]

The Female Roommate: K.T. Tunstall - Suddenly I See [Out of the blue, The Female Roommate realizes she loves The Hero.]
The Roommate: The Magnetic Fields - I Don’t Really Love You Anymore [The Roommate, furious over this turn of events, makes a desperate, but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to convince himself that he has no feelings for The Female Roommmate.]
The Hero: Phoenix - Consolation Prizes [The Hero accepts the Female Roommate's attentions.]
The Female Roommate: Mint Royale - Shake Me [The Hero and The Female Roommate have incredibly noisy sex that The Roommate has to sit and listen to, no matter how much he turns up the TV.]
The Roommate: XTC - I’m The Man Who Murdered Love [After he kills them both, The Roommate explains why to the police.]

CODA
The Go! Team - Feelgood By Numbers [This sounded happy, so I thought it was a nice touch to exit on it.]

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Posted on February 11, 2009

Comments

8 Responses to “Jealousy in Three Acts”

brad on February 11th, 2009 4:25 pm

I’ve barely read any of this yet and it already seems pretty damn awesome.

DThompson on February 11th, 2009 6:13 pm

You’re a hard man to disagree with, brad.

Kendall on February 11th, 2009 8:06 pm

I’m claiming partial credit for this! But, this is way way way cooler than what I was planning on originally. By the way, Nikki Sixx’s rock opera record is awful. Has anyone seen Repo: The Genetic Opera yet?

DThompson on February 12th, 2009 12:27 am

I’m giving you partial credit for this, actually, it’s more like foisting it off on you. By the way, I’m still waiting for your article slash overview of the field. If I had to grow up in the seventies listening to all that bloated garbage you can at least write about how painful it all is to duffer through. Except for Husker Du’s Zen Arcade, which apparently actually DOES tell a story about some kid running away from home though I really defy anyone to give specific details. At least I provided explanatory notes for my confusing mish mash.

DThompson on February 12th, 2009 12:27 am

sigh…
“duffer”=suffer

Itax on February 12th, 2009 9:57 am

This is great, absolute crazy fun. It reminds me of a mash-up in a way. Its like a mash-up rock opera. How many versions of this were there before you settled on this one? Has the music industry put a hit out on you yet? Are you really wearing that outside?

DThompson on February 12th, 2009 10:36 am

There was the original version, which If I recall correctly took about a week to put together with many MANY revisions and shufflings and casting outs and new inclusions and re-inclusions and cursing and tears, oh yes, there were tears…which was destroyed when my computer died and demanded a re-install of the OS, and there’s this second version, taken from written notes of the first but with a few minor changes in which character is “singing” (particularly in Act III - scene i) and the Jellyfish song added on.
No hits on me yet, at least as far as I know. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but Charbarred runs interference for me on all gunplay. It’s a perk.
Whatever it is you think I’m wearing outside, unless it’s a terrycloth bathrobe and a pair of mauve bunny slippers, the answer is no.

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