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Before They Were Night Vale: Chapter 6 - MOUTH

Added 2021-09-08 20:49:26 +0000 UTC

Welcome to "Before They Were Night Vale", our feature in which Night Vale creators Jeffrey and Joseph share writing from before their Welcome to Night Vale collaboration, along with commentary. Come explore their early writing, both good and bad.

Not technically before Night Vale, since this premiered in June 2013, but my wife, choreographer Jillian Sweeney, and I had started writing and creating this show called Vulture-Wally way back in 2011.

It was divided into 10 chapters, each titled after a part of the body. Each of those chapters, in turn, explored what that body part represented, or what it did. Some were dances, some were monologues, some leaned more toward visual art installations.

This particular chapter, though, was a song. I wrote this song. It's the only song I've ever written, and it was hard as shit to do because I'm not musically inclined. In fact, the woman on the left had to actually assign the key. I sang her the melody, and she figured out the notes to write down. I'm that musically ignorant.

The song's a bit wordy and repetitive, which I knew when I was writing it, so I played with that notion toward the end. But rewatching it (I haven't seen this video in 8 years. yeek!) I'm still pretty pleased. For all that I lacked in musical technique, I feel like I made up for in audience interaction. By using the overhead projector, we got people to sing along.

And perhaps its a testament to the chorus's catchiness that people really belted that part. Anyway, the point is, I used to be a songwriter. I wrote one. About 100 people saw it performed live over the course of two weekends, and then I retired. I was at the top of my game. Jordan-like, I am.

-Jeffrey Cranor