SONG: “Bodiless”.
ARTIST: grant.
SOURCE: Vox, 17 April 2019, “Scientists: We kept pig brains alive 10 hours after death. Bioethicists: ‘Holy shit.’,” as used in the post “The pigs were dead for 10 hours, and then they weren’t: ‘The ethics of experimenting on partially reanimated brains is uncharted territory.’”
ABSTRACT:
Up until two days ago, I didn’t think I’d have anything at all; this thing fell together pretty much all at once. I had been experimenting with shimmer reverb (um, basically using chorus and feedback-loop effects to create shoegaze guitar sounds) but nothing was really coming together. Then, I just decided, fine, OK, the best story of the past month was definitely the reanimated pigs.
And wrote all the words during one 45-minute train ride. Rather than do a I-V-IV-V chord progression, like, I dunno, it seems like every one of those shimmer reverb shoegaze songs are in – in other words, a super-standard old fashioned rock-and-roll chord progression – I did the other thing, “8 Miles High”-style.
Everything but the drum is a real instrument – a bass (doubled left and right, with different effects on each side) and like four nylon-string guitar tracks (doubled, different effects, same general idea).
The words aren’t as graceful as I’d like – I really wanted the vocals to come across as dreamy and floaty – but I managed to rhyme “O2” with “get up and go to” so, you know, I’m happy. The chorus is catchy. And pigs!
What the hell are we doing with pigs? Sure, this is going to save lives, and possibly defeat the scourge of death forever, but meanwhile … those little pigs, waking up. Sure, they weren’t precisely conscious as far as we know, but still. This is some seriously ground-shifting research.
I really like the idea of this brain-revivifying process somehow leading to a kind of transcendent trance state, where it de facto opens the gates to Heaven. Only, of course, there’s a pig standing there in the way. Got there first.
Wake up, little pig. You don’t need your body any more.
LYRICS:
(A-C) Wake up, little pig – you’ve been down for hours
(D-D) Thank you for the bacon that we eat
(A-C) This new procedure shouldn’t hurt your feelings
(D-D) It should separate your feelings from your meat
Feelings from your meat (x2)(A-C) Wake up, little pig – what’s it like in there?
(D-D) Your container shines, not that you’d care
(A-C) These injections of O2 would give get-up and go to
(D-D) The laziest brain – so don’t be scared
Don’t be scared (x2)==
(E-E) The plugs are in a row
(D-D) The fluids flow
(C-C) The spark that fades to black
(B-B) We can bring it back(A-C) You are bodiless now, bodiless now
(D-D) Bodiless
(A-C) Bodiless
(D-D) Bodiless
==(A-C) Wake up, little pig – this is techNOlogy
(D-D) Beyond the body, past all mortal pain
(A-C) This is how we transcend it all – we have no sentiment at all
(D-D) And all you have to do is give us your brain
Give us your brain (x2)==
(E-E) The plugs are in a row
(D-D) The fluids flow
(C-C) The spark that fades to black
(B-B) We can bring it back(A-C) You are bodiless now, bodiless now
(D-D) Bodiless
(A-C) Bodiless
(D-D) Bodiless