The Children's Pioneer

[imomus]

Today's song, Belvedere, might have come from the Barbapapa picture I used to illustrate Your Fat Friend. I wanted to make a children's song, but one from a parallel world where things work a little differently. I suppose I could say that I want to reveal the normative values built into all songs adults write for children. Or I could just say that this song reminds me of my brief and unhappy stint as a cub scout, or the little fascist I became when, influenced no doubt by all sorts of 'police television', I formed a gang called the 'Law Enforcement Helpers' and ran around Edinburgh parks trying to stop people breaking bylaws. I could also say that if The 2005 Album From Momus wants to be David Bowie's Lodger, this song wants to be its 'Boys Keep Swinging'. Or perhaps it's enough to point out that, here in Berlin, irony has always been a defense against people who wear armbands.

Hey you, have you paid your download dollar? Guards, take him to the Great Mountain of Death!

Belvedere

Sorry, this track is no longer available. Please buy the CD when it comes out!

Belvedere

Children of the New Republic all revere
Belvedere the children's pioneer
Everything that children do Belvedere does too
And everything he does, he does because he loves you
Children of the New Republic all revere
Belvedere the children's pioneer

What fun it is to do the things he shows you how to do!
Report the conversations of your parents to the Guard
Sleep naked with a member of the Inner High Elite
Touch other children's genitals for pleasure
For Belvedere and children it's 'Never say never'!

O Belvedere, Belvedere, Belvedere
With his helpers Stevedore, Tigris and Fingal
Just to hear their names -- you tingle!
Belvedere the children's pioneer

Children of the New Republic all revere
Belvedere the children's pioneer
He looks just like a child, but he's really something more
He's what you'd be if you were more perfect than you are
Children of the New Republic all revere
Belvedere the children's pioneer

What fun it is to do the things in this week's episode!
To take your parents, struggling, to the Great Mountain of Death
To sing the party anthem as you throw them off the edge
To speak the children's language and to shoot the children's gun
Round up the children's traitors, to kill them one by one!

O Belvedere, Belvedere, Belvedere
When your friend is by your side nothing can harm you
If danger creeps up while you sleep he sounds the alarm!

Belvedere, Belvedere, Belvedere
With his helpers Stevedore, Tigris and Fingal
Just to hear their names -- ah!

Children of the New Republic all revere
Belvedere the children's pioneer

Comments

[klaus-nomi.livejournal.com]

I love when you share your new songs. Will you make a LJ album? Glod only knows.

[01-lazyuno.livejournal.com]

are you playing at Sonajero?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It looks like there may be a Barcelona concert on Friday 2nd July, and possibly other dates around that time in Madrid and Bilbao. Watch

http://www.imomus.com/news.html

for confirmation.

belvedere oil

[dannyshoup.livejournal.com]

this song reminds me of a dream i once had. in it, Mr. Belvedere the comical butler had been rendered for his essential oils. I was hanging out with a woman with huge nappy hair; she rubbed the Belvedere Oil into her head and her curls relaxed almost instantly. she pulled them with her hands and the hair unravelled almost like string off of a spool. she then started shrinking, almost like alice, until she was very small. and then i woke up.

(Mr. Belvedere was a comical butler on a 1980s american tv show of the same name.)

[psychicmongoose.livejournal.com]

Just this evening I found a paper my sister had written in second grade describing a perfect world: everyone who followed the "world rules" would receive rewards from every country, and everyone who broke them more than once would go to jail.

<i>Scouting For Boys</i>

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

A recent issue of The New York Review of Books featured an intriguing review of a new book which examines Robert Baden-Powell's role in the origin of the worldwide scouting movement. Remarkable to discover that both American and German scouting share a common origin in this man's ceaseless self-promotion.

[craigwilson.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you're probably aware of this, but after the Russian Revolution, the Scout Organisation was banned and there was a purge of the Scout Leaders, many of whom perished in labour camps etc.

Go figure?

Re: <i>Scouting For Boys</i>

[andypop.livejournal.com]

Yes, Baden-Powell's original scouting manual has just been reissued under that very title, 'Scouting For Boys'. And there's a drawing of a young man on the front apparently doing just that.

[klasensjo.livejournal.com]

'Law Enforcement Helpers' - oh boy! :D

A children's album would be nice. I like this one. You can whistle along with this tune...while you beat someone up, I guess.

I have just heard a great children's album by Carl Orff, the often overlooked and quite magnificent "Musica Poetica - Schulwerk". Beats me how it would appeal to kids, but anyway...

[(Anonymous)]

Well as Freud might point out, you are a bit of a boy-man
children's pioneer yourself!

[672672.livejournal.com]

love u!

[padmaclynne.livejournal.com]

you have disturbed me.

thank you.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Just wait till you hear John Ashcroft's version of the song!

[padmaclynne.livejournal.com]

nah, that's not disturbed, that's furious and revolutionary.

call me childish

[sweetnessss.livejournal.com]

but for some reason this reminded me of you.

http://www.rathergood.com/biscuits/

[(Anonymous)]

the anonymous hecklers are killed in the night?

i revere mr belvedere!

[gorillabiscuit.livejournal.com]

how come you never see comical butlers anymore?

the last one i remember was Alfred in the Batman movie with the Riddler.

please correct me if i'm wrong, but is this archetype endangered?
should corrective actions be taken?
imagine a world without surreal dreams with comical butlers?
bring back the comical butler!

-tomas

[gorillabiscuit.livejournal.com]

the vocal melody on this track is a bit tired.
i've heard it in your songs too many times before.

especially the chorus.

-tomas

Never say Never-Neverland

[(Anonymous)]

Wait a minute--this is about Michael Jackson, isn't it?

Another plum for the pudding.