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Rating: In the ocean of rock music, one can sometimes encounter characters who have little to do with the seriousness and presumption of many "serious" artists, and one such character is the pyrotechnic Les Claypool, a imaginative and eclectic bassist with a mocking personality and a typically Zappa-like taste for provocation and the absurd. Let it be clear, there is nothing particularly comic or reassuring in this album; if anything, the opposite occurs, but the group's cartoonish style manages to open new perspectives for the listener.
This gives life to a series of tracks that exploit a range of irregular rhythms, guitar dissonances, and raw bass slaps to tell jester-like stories of desperate solitude ("Nature Boy"), paint scenes of paranoia and suicide (the bluesy "Bob", chilling in its catatonic progression) or simply mock the figure of the presumptuous and arrogant music critic ("The Pressman", with touches of Indian-like psychedelia and even a hint of Pink Floyd). Between sketches, the band performs curious and sometimes not entirely successful instrumental numbers (the nearly useless "Pork Chop's Little Ditty" 1 and 2) while managing to create a hypnotic and vaguely unsettling episode like "Wounded Knee", a sort of psychedelic dub for marimba and drums. Tracks like "Mr. Krinkle" belong to the horror genre, and here the underlying seriousness of all the other tracks surfaces more explicitly, both in the leaden atmospheres and in Claypool's tense/frightened singing. Completing the whole are the (decidedly boring) jam "Hamburger Train" and another absolutely worthless instrumental, "Hail Santa".
This album marks the attainment of a certain maturity in the band's sound (although using such a term when talking about Primus might sound nonsensical and blasphemous), where surreal and macabre lyrics perfectly fit a musical backdrop staged with the utmost care and in the most spectacular way possible. "Pork Soda" is a contemporary rock opera, a repugnant and malevolent portrait of the ills of modern society, somewhat like a less apocalyptic and more satirical version of "Animals", with Les Claypool's distorting mask instead of Roger Waters' depressed and paranoid seriousness. And after all this, don't say you didn't laugh even a little.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
02 My Name Is Mud (04:47)
My name is Mud
Not to be confused with Bill or Jack or Pete or Dennis
My name is mud and it's always been
'Cause I'm the most boring sons-a-bitch you've ever seen
I dress in blue-yes navy blue
From head to toe I'm rather drab except my patent shoes
I make 'em shine, well most the time
'Cept today my feet are troddin' on by this friend of mine
Six foot two and rude as hell
I got to get him in the ground before he starts to smell
My name is Mud
My name is Mud, but call me Aloysius Devadander Abercrombie
That's long for Mud so I've been told
Told that by this sonsabitch that lies before me bloated blue and cold
I've got my pride, I drink my wine
I'd drink only the finest 'cept I haven't earned a dime in several months
Or were it years
The breath on that fat bastard could bring any man to tears
We had our words, a common spat
So I kissed him upside the cranium with that aluminum baseball bat
My name is Mud
03 Welcome to This World (03:40)
Oh, welcome to this world of fools
Of pink champagne and swimming pools
Well, all you have to lose is your virginity
Perhaps we'll have some fun tonight
So stick around and take a bite of life
We don't need feebleness in this proximity
Ask good MacDuff and Donalbain,
So many good ideas are slain
By those who would dare not step out of line
But if I have my way tonight
And chances are I think I might-
I'll turn those sour minds to grapes of wine
Welcome to this world
Don't judge the boy by what you hear
The words are heard beyond the ear
The heart and mind are focus for this conversation
But be abound in mystery for that so much you do to me
For there are those who drown in adulation
Welcome to this world
If I had a dime for each time that I heard them preach
Well I'd have wicked thoughts upon my brain
04 Bob (04:39)
I had a friend that took a belt,
Took a belt and hung himself
Hung himself in the doorway
Of the apartment where he lived
His woman and his little bro
Came home from the grocery store
Only to find him dangling
In the apartment where he lived
I had a friend who shaved his head
Put his Doctor Martins on
And drew such wonderous pictures
In the apartment where he lived
He praised my creativity,
Though he spoke sarcastically
Oh, the conversations
In the apartment where he lived
I had a friend that took a belt,
Took a belt and hung himself
Hung himself in the doorway
Of the apartment where he lived
Rock, she thought him spiteful;
Ler, he thought him pitiful
Me, I've never been back to the apartment where he lived
05 DMV (04:58)
I've been to hell. I spell it...
I spell it DMV
Anyone that's been there
knows precisely what I mean
Stood there and I've waited
and choked back the urge to scream
And if I had my druthers
I'd screw a chimpanzee
call it pointless
When I need relief I spell it THC
Perhaps you may know vaguely what I mean
I sit back and smoke away
huge chunks of memory
As I slowly inflict upon
myself a full lobotomy
call it pointless
Barbecues, tea kettles, gobs of axle grease
There comes a time for every man
To sail the seas of cheese
Now, life's a bowl of bagel dogs,
but there are unpleasantries
Cold toilet seats, dentist chairs
and trips to DMV
call it pointless
I've been to hell. I spell it...
I spell it DMV
Anyone that's been there knows
precisely what I mean
I've stood in line and waited
near an hour and fifteen
And if I had my druthers
I'd screw that chimpanzee
call it pointless
07 Nature Boy (05:33)
I pull the blinds then I take my clothes off
Dance around the house like nature boy
My genitalia and pectoral muscles
aren't quite what I would like them to be
But you don't see me
No one can see me
I pull my blinds
Fill out my income tax form
Pen in hand I write so legibly
I have my kitty. His name is Allowishus,
I stroke him
But you don't see me
No one should see me
I pull the blinds
For the sun glares off my tele
and I find it quite so irritating
I have my videos - loads of Ren and Stimpy
Bottom - a bit of pornography
But you don't see me
No one should see me
Well, I've been known to tell a tale in two, and three, and four
And I've been persecuted sicne I sailed in through the door
And I've been known to sing a song in three, and four, and five
And I've been getting my ass chewed since the day I arrived here
But you don't see
No one should see me
10 The Pressman (05:11)
By the light of the lamp I sit to type-
my notes on tab at my side
I don't see the sun much these days
A fluorescent tan covers my hide
How much impact shall I have this time?
My goal today is to reac the deadline
I write between the lines
I deal with fantasy
I report the facts
Give them to me, please
Ham and egg sald on white bread
keeps me company on nights like this
A pack of metholated cigarettes
keeps my air nice and thick
When I write, words flow like coins from a candy box
Get out of my way
I've got something to say
The pulse is beating louder now
The cramps in my hands grow more intense with
Each tik, tik, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap on the keys
My social life is at an end so it seems to be
Why don't I trample on your lawn today?
I'll take skies of blue, turn over skies of grey
I write between the lines
I deal with fantasy
I am the pressman
Acknowledge me
Mother always told me never stray too far from home
The little lady said,
"Boy, you'll never have to be alone, because,"
You build with fountain pen
You create the memory stain
You are the pressman
Stand up straight, boy
12 The Air Is Getting Slippery (02:30)
It's incredibly hot in here today, incredibly hot in here
It's incredibly hot in here today, incredibly hot in here
The air is getting SLIPPERY and it's not to my surprise
My heart, it beats irregularly and the sweat it fills my eyes
I do not mind what I excrete 'cause
I'm here to make a buck
And those that cannot take the heat can take a flying...
Forgive me if I hesitate
It's incredibly hot in here today, incredibly hot in here
It's incredibly hot if I must say, incredibly hot in here
The dogs are barking merrily as Jerry sits on high
If you've studied your Floyd PROPERLY, you'd know that pigs could fly
Now if you want an encore you might hear is at luck
But me, I'd rather play Residents, 'cause I don't give a...
Forgive me if I hesitate
It's incredibly hot in here today, incredibly hot in here
It's incredibly hot if I must say, incredibly hot in here
Now, Fatty, he's a hell of a guy but he sweats like a dancing mule
He likes to hang out at Checker Gas with the Chets he knew from high school
He sold enough crystal meth to buy a stepside truck
But if you ask me twice I'd say the boy ain't worth a...
Forgive me if I hesitate
It's incredibly hot in here today, incredibly hot in here
It's incredibly hot in here today, incredibly hot in here
The act of perspiration is far beyond control
If the heat compels to aspirate please try not to miss the bowl
If sweatiness makes you horny, well darlin' I think you're in luck
'Cause all this clever banter gives me the urge to FUCK
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