[fedora borealis]
[Time: 5'57"]
[Lyrics: Thom Woodley, Andy Wagner]
[First performed September 11, 1999 -- show #40]
[Appears as track #4 on "Mainstream Mayhem"]
[Tim: upright bass, Nevin: viola, Jamie: percussion, vocals, Andy: guitar, vocals, Thom: guitar, vocals]


Tackling the issue of swing in its neo-movement from stances both appraising and apprehensive,
this 5/4 number utilizes the same dissonant vocal scales of "The Ashley,"
although here to much brighter effect. A song that had a long conception period,
with a year and a half between it being started and it being performed.


I wanted to write something for the dancing girls
For the dark pool halls and speakeasies they wish constituted their world
And throw some light on their noir ambitions of never-ending bolero twirl
The fedora borealis

Acoustic bass in the face of sorority technopseudo grace
And a Dorseyan beat to get the swingers and flappers and steppers to pillage the place
A renewal of square roots long left in grandpa's suits, in short let me paraphrase
It's a fedora borealis

Don your hat on your coiffure and quaff from your crystal chalice
It's time to come out of your chrysalis

Somehwere inside, I don't know which subcutaneous layer
Dick Tracy sleuths inside my lungs, possessing me to swing with flair
And Cab sits on one shoulder, whispering nonsense in my ear
While the Abercrombie carbon zombies have themselves another shitty beer

Now if you need a life, like the other remoras
Jump in Acura or your Ford Explor-a
Drive on down Ventura and on past Glocomorra
To a little beach town reminiscent of Gomorrah
Shop for veloura or sweaters angora
Head over the hill to the light of the aurora
And there you will find a tremendous plethora
Of guys like you lit up like a menorah
With their boxes so clearly labeled "Pandora"
A warning they all so plainly ignore-a
And there you will find me
Just look under my fedora

We don't got no trumpet, we don't got no sax
We don't got no trombones, no White Russians or Tan and Blacks
There's no ocean of alcohol soaking the dancefloor
And staining our pearly white slacks
But we got all we need
A viola, a triola, and all the machismo five coffeeshop poets can bring.


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