Domenica 24 Lug 2011, 21:41
Here's my own, fabricated tracklist of SFTBH, along with explanations for the rolling storyline in each song, which I think flows pretty well. All songs are exclusively from Black Hole/Pinkerton sessions. Opinions are welcome!
Act 1 – Up in the Stars
1 - Blast Off!
Jonas is nervous about the mission and gets teased by Wuan and Dondo.
2 - Who You Callin' Bitch?
Maria blows up at Dondo; Jonas comforts her
3 - You Won't Get With Me Tonight
Maria hits on Jonas but he won’t give in, seeing her as nothing more than a friend
4 - Oh Jonas
Maria falls in love with Jonas
5 - Please Remember
Jonas tries to convince Maria he’s only a friend, but fails
6 - Why Bother?*
Jonas makes a last ditch attempt to convince himself that he can’t do this
7 - Come to My Pod
Maria seduces Jonas and takes him back to her pod, where they fuck
8 - Oh No, This Is Not for Me
Jonas suddenly pulls out
9 - Tired of Sex
Jonas laments his sex-fuelled, love-less life and pines for true love
10 - Superfriend
Jonas confides his feelings in Laurel and becomes close to her
11 - You Gave Your Love to Me Softly*
Jonas and Laurel fuck and blissfully fall in love with each other
12 - She's Had a Girl**
Maria gives birth to Jonas’ daughter on the ship; Jonas is shocked
Act 2 – Down to Earth
13 - Dude, We're Finally Landing
The ship finally lands back on Earth. Wuan and Dondo are happy but Jonas is pissed off
14 - Waiting on You*
Jonas is waiting for Laurel to call him, but she never does
15 - Now I Finally See**
Jonas begins to think about what he really wants and needs
16 - Getchoo
Jonas feels rejected by Laurel, comparing her to how he treated Maria
17 - I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams
Laurel is still in love with Jonas and feels guilty for ditching him
18 - No Other One
Jonas accepts that he’s bound to Maria
19 - Devotion
Jonas finally falls in love with Maria after realizing he took her devotion to him for granted
20 - What Is This I Find?**
Who knows?
21 - Longtime Sunshine
Jonas pines for simpler times and laments the loss of Maria (could also be Laurel…)
* Not in the original tracklists.
** Still waiting for Alone III to come out before they can be used.
Storyline
The storyline for SFTBH is basically as presented above. Jonas shoots off into space and clumsily lets himself be seduced into sex with his old flame Maria, but his loyalties lay elsewhere after he falls in love with Laurel, his “superfriend”. Maria then gives birth to Jonas’ daughter during the mission, turning his life upside down. That’s all well and good. The second act is where things become a bit muddled, as it’s very incomplete and mostly composed of full Pinkerton songs and B-Sides, compared to the swathe of story-telling interludes in Act 1.
The ship lands back on Earth. We can see that by the time Getchoo and I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams roll about, Jonas and Laurel have split up, as the songs are from Jonas and Laurel’s points of view respectively. Why they split up doesn’t seem to be clarified – it just jumps from Dude, We’re Finally Landing (and by extension, jumps straight from She’s Had a Girl). However, No Other One and Devotion are both very similar songs and are clearly talking about Maria, with their passive-aggressively scornful lyrics, involving Jonas reluctantly accepting that his future lies with Maria.
You could assume Jonas and Maria are now back together, but he could just as well be fantasizing in his loneliness at this point. Longtime Sunshine is the album’s solemn, sad closer, and the story in this song is rather uncertain. We can gather he’s finally given up and just wants to return to how it all was before the space mission. He says goodbye to a girl at the end, but this could be either Laurel or Maria. And I’d actually prefer it if it was Maria, refusing to take him back – not only would it tie in perfectly with NOO/Devotion, but it’d also give SFTBH that soap operatic quality.
The only way we’re going to know the answer here is the elusive, missing SFTBH track What Is This I Find?, which sits in between Devotion and Longtime Sunshine (actually the album’s closing track on the original Track List 2). I have a feeling it’s actually not going to clarify anything, but still…
Additional Tracks
• Why Bother? - of course, Why Bother? actually appears in the Coda at the end of Longtime Sunshine and was confirmed as a SFTBH track by Karl, despite not actually appearing on any of the tracklists. I think it fits almost perfectly in between Please Remember and Come to My Pod, as Jonas tries to convince himself not to bother fucking Maria. It also nicely breaks up that big stupid block of 40 second interludes there and makes the album flow a lot better. The more, the better.
• You Gave Your Love to Me Softly - definitely isn't a SFTBH song but I just couldn't resist. I mean it fits so well after Superfriend and adds a crucial missing piece to the picture - Jonas and Laurel making love (the song being from Jonas’s view of course). Not to mention it's possibly the best Weerez song ever recorded, matches up musically and was composed during the same sessions. The lyrics too are also ridiculously close to Superfriend (with the girl in the song singing lullabies and cradling Rivers like a child). Really, I’m amazed nobody else has attempted to use this in SFTBH.
• Waiting on You - bit of a harder choice as it's such a heavy, slow, dirgey song compared to almost everything else on SFTBH. However, it acts as a wonderful opener to Act II (after they land in Good News!) and also adds another crucial missing piece to the plot - Laurel rejecting Jonas on Earth by not returning his calls. Otherwise, the thing just abruptly jumps from Superfriend (Jonas falling for Laurel) to Getchoo (Jonas suddenly feeling dumped by her) and IJTOTLOMD (Laurel apparently regretting dumping Jonas cuz she loves him so much…wait what?). Apparently this was another “unsequenced” SFTBH song like Why Bother?, because it apparently also appeared in the Longtime Sunshine Coda, but now we finally have the Coda version, I can’t seem to hear it…oh well.
Weezer
Songs from the Black Hole