Song #1: I Am Your Enemy

http://soundcloud.com/ignatius-zoo/i-am-your-enemy




I Am Your Enemy by Ignatius Zoo




This song has been in my head for a couple years. I put off recording it for the longest time because I knew that I wouldn't be able to do it justice. So this morning, when I knew I'd post the first of 100 songs, I had nothing. No music, no finished lyrics, no song file. Nothing. So I had a deadline, and I worked it out. While I think that I didn't get it perfect, it sounds very close to the version in my head. So, good thing that I decided to do the Hundred Project. This never would have been made otherwise.

I did want this to be my #1 Song. It's my pre-emptive strike. I will discard you, I will betray you. Don't say you weren't warned.

The song is about celebrity. It's not exactly something I strive for, but celebrity is omnipresent today, present in the most ordinary places and sources. Everyone has a public. Nihilism feeds celebrity. If you'll believe in anything, you'll believe in nothing at all. You will stand for nothing.

The lyrics came together quickly once I sat down with two blank sheets of paper and a pen. Some of the reference are explicitly about war while implictly describing a hard-luck situation (Waterloo, Dien Bien Phu). Some lyrics reference self-confidence inflated to the point of lunacy. All the lyrics involve gleeful nastiness.

It's good to start out with a straighforward rocker. All power chords, distortion and caterwauling. Enjoy. Maybe sing along.

Five minutes 'til midnight. Better hit "publish post".

***

I Am Your Enemy
music and lyrics by Ignatius Zoo, ©2011

I am your primal scream
I am your teenage dream
I am your tooth that's loose
I am your golden goose
I am your Waterloo
I am your Dien Bien Phu
I am your fleur de lys
I am your enemy

I am your poster boy for glamor
Getting hammered in the slammer
Won't you listen to me yammer?
Maybe sing along?
I am your ever-moving goalpost
With a bon mot and a riposte
Do my utmost just to cut you
And swear I did no wrong
I know where you're not strong
I am your enemy

I'm your St. Andrew's Cross
I am your boss's boss
I am your Sunday best
I'm compound interest
I am the path that's true
I am the other shoe
It's gonna drop. Guess where?
That's right. It's gonna drop on you

I could make you and un-make you
Cut you loose and then re-take you
Fake you out and then forsake you
More like you to find
I'm the blood moon on your horizon
Try as you might, you keep your eyes on me
Despise on me while you cry on
Cry your red eyes blind
I am not your kind
I am your enemy

I will love you in the crossfire
Where you can feel the bullets sting
I will cash in on your passion
I will make your black heart sing
I am the nothing you believe in
If you'll believe in anything