Is it terrible that I hope it’s Billie and Walky waking up next to each other?
Utterly nonsexual happenstance, but that sheer gut wrenching terror of the moment they wake up like, wearing each other’s shirts after a drunken debauch friendship reconciliation.
Carla in the window playing the violin WEE WEE WEEEWEE from the Halloween movies.
Tofusmith
Counterpoint: what if it’s Dorothy and Sal
Joyce would have an aneurysm
clif
What if it’s Ruth and Danny. Everyone would have an aneurysm.
Time Sage
What if it’s all three of these since there’s no overlap!
Rook
I think everyone would have an aneurysm if its Walky and Ruth.
Joyce and Walky. “I had the weirdest dream,” Joyce says. “We were in college together, and Head Alien was just a cartoon character, and I was dating Joe, and you were dating some random girl from Robin’s store…”
it’d be hilarious if mcr actually did show up there that weekend as some kinda ‘tour’ tho idk how many bands play for/get invited to colleges versus just some theatre rented near one
Reel Big Fish played at my undergrad. What was wild is this was 2014 and I was a non-trad student so I think I might have been the only one that was super excited but still.
The important thing now is that the song fits the situation.
clif
Sorry for the report, Willis. Clumsy fingers on a tablet.
I was going to say that the song doesn’t have to fix the situation in order to be cathartic, but I seem to have slipped over into an alternate universe where Coatl said “fit the situation” rather than “fix the situation. ”
Either that or I should wake up before reading and commenting.
I feel like country would be a big stretch. Pop less so, but still a no.
Granted, I’m likewise having trouble coming up with any suitable alternatives. My mind says videogame music, but we haven’t really had any evidence that she does (or ever did) much gaming. On the other hand, she does strike me as someone who would be into music that does interesting things with either instruments or vocals, though. Like heavy metal with an accordion, rock with a violin, crazy tongue-twisters, unusual vocabulary…things like that.
bemisawa
Chamber rock!
…or accordion metal, I suppose.
Axel
my thoughts for her are mostly pop/adult contemporary/soft rock, mostly the places where the genres overlap. That’s what my kind of similar friends would listen to at her age (though most of them also had one or two more interesting picks too)
also this isn’t a genre but I see like… inspirational music? The two songs that for some reason came to my head for her were ‘you raise me up’ (not that I see her singing that about anyone) and ‘breakaway’ (though I don’t know if Americans listen to Kelly Clarkson, and it’s not 2004)- that kind of theme
Axel
I stand by this whole comment, but tbh ‘adult contemporary’ on its own seems like a good summary of Dorothy’s persona (at least, pre-tragedies)
ian livs
Oh, we definitely listened to Kelly Clarkson
Drew Hargrave
Not to bully you too hard but.. AMERICAN IDOL, Kelly Clarkson, not being listened to by Americans would certainly be amusing.
Axel
I got mixed up, thought she was on Canadian Idol (in my defence, I didn’t watch either show). They sure seemed to play her music like it was CanCon
Needfuldoer
I bet she’d listen to uptempo pop country, but probably not modern
“blue jeans truck girl beer boots truck” bro country or old-school country. Her playlists must have some Carrie Underwood and LeAnn Rimes in them.
There I Ruined It hit the nail on the head with that one.
My folks have Lonestarās My Front Porch Looking In on heavy rotation at their house. I canāt stand the sound of it anyway, and I get that itās supposed to be heartwarming and sentimental, but I canāt shake the mental picture of a useless dad standing there watching his wife struggle to get their two little kids out the door.
What happened to Brooks & Dunn, Alan Jackson, Garth Brooks country?
In rock, it’s sweat and energy and “hope I die before I get old”. Pop? “Pop will eat itself”: Be catchy, and if it sounds passe in five years, no matter.
There’s a…Zen(?) to country. The themes may be somewhat limited, but the ways to vary the connection to the audience can be made anew.
I’m not the only one taking new country songs and thinking about Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, George Jones & Tammy Wynette, etc, and hoping they’re as good.
Antsan
I feel like she may listen to Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada and the like.
I think a lot of children hear mostly the songs their parents (and older siblings) listen to, up to a certain age. And I can see Dorothy not getting super into her own musical interests (yet).
Also, like, when the comic first came out it would make sense she’d know the song by heart, given the album would have come out when she was a teenager.
But current timeline, the song came out- wait, before she was even born ??? oh god making me feel olda
I think it’s cute how watsonian this whole thread is.
But Doylistically speaking, i think Willis simply doesn’t listen to a lot of music. They like MCR. So their characters more or less all like MCR.
Are you sure english language music from the 60s to the early 2000s isn’t just really really good? According to Star Trek it will continue to be quite popular for centuries.
Needfuldoer
Not just that, the crew of the Enterprise D loved public domain classical music that Paramount didnāt have to pay licensing fees to use!
Centuries from now, Classical Music will come to mean anything before Jazz-Rap Fusion. The Boroque period will remain distinct and will have a resurgence in popularity from time to time, though of course it will have to be altered and fixed for postmodern ears. This will not be done with the rest of the then-classic ouevre because, as we all know, if it ain’t Boroque you don’t fix it.
If she’s like me she at that age, she has really wide-ranging tastes. I did like classical, but I also liked alternative, heavy metal (both old and contemporary), was learning to like 70s music I’d previously not appreciated from my new friends, showtunes, operetta, opera (got a bunch of my friends into opera…), would soon get into a capella, and liked just basically everything except techno and country.
People have always been really surprised that I don’t like Ballet (my sister does), even though I like opera, but like… I like what I like, not what people think my type likes. (I don’t have the attention span for music without words being anything but background music.)
I feel like Dorothy would be into stuff like Liz Phair, Fiona Apple, and other artists like that. I think that Ruth would be the one to sing MCR and Dorothy would be singing Jewel, but it was probably reversed for characterization reasons
I’d think Dorothy looked up songs she might want to sing before karaoke–like, searching keywords, finding songs that felt emotionally appropriate–but I don’t think she had that level of ambition here.
Yeah, she never admits when she’s overdone it, so we end up in this weird place of “nothing is wrong, ever,” and when people point it out she just kind of doesn’t correct them. This is good.
Having done this song, the first two verses are hard to do on key, but then if you make it through the volume and delivery changes and finish strong, no one remembers the first two verses.
IMO, she urgently needed to be bad at this. The last thing she needs is another thing to be Perfect at. A new hobby with the same bad mentality isn’t the way.
Also, I love that it’s preceded by a panel of Jennifer and Ruth, because they are wearing-out, both in general and in specific to Dorothy right now, with this whole we’ll-save-you scheme. Brilliant, 10/10 no notes.
intransitive verb
1 a: to make a loud and long cry of sorrow : to lament with a keen
b: to make a sound suggestive of a loud cry of sorrow
a keening siren
2: to lament, mourn, or complain loudly
True Survivor
Oh man, that is brilliant. Willis plays the long game with the patience and brilliance of master strategist. I am once again filled with a small sense of wonder (and envy).
Discussion (177) - “Not the life it seems”
Ana Chronistic
“huhuhu that’s what SHE sā”
*falls over from drunkness*
Rose by Any Other Name
New storyline begins…
… they wake up together.
(not specifying who ‘they’ are because really it could go a few different ways)
clif
Surely we’ll get a dream first.
Needfuldoer
Judging by the blurry preview, it’s going to be a flashback.
GholaHalleck
Is it terrible that I hope it’s Billie and Walky waking up next to each other?
Utterly nonsexual happenstance, but that sheer gut wrenching terror of the moment they wake up like, wearing each other’s shirts after a drunken debauch friendship reconciliation.
Carla in the window playing the violin WEE WEE WEEEWEE from the Halloween movies.
Tofusmith
Counterpoint: what if it’s Dorothy and Sal
Joyce would have an aneurysm
clif
What if it’s Ruth and Danny. Everyone would have an aneurysm.
Time Sage
What if it’s all three of these since there’s no overlap!
Rook
I think everyone would have an aneurysm if its Walky and Ruth.
John Campbell
Joyce and Walky. “I had the weirdest dream,” Joyce says. “We were in college together, and Head Alien was just a cartoon character, and I was dating Joe, and you were dating some random girl from Robin’s store…”
“Nah, we broke up,” Walky says.
Bryy
….. oh shit.
Mr. Random
Sometimes, you just gotta give into the angst.
That’s what MCR is really for.
anon
it’d be hilarious if mcr actually did show up there that weekend as some kinda ‘tour’ tho idk how many bands play for/get invited to colleges versus just some theatre rented near one
Katy
Reel Big Fish played at my undergrad. What was wild is this was 2014 and I was a non-trad student so I think I might have been the only one that was super excited but still.
Axel
I know most people know at least a few songs, but I wouldn’t have guessed MCR for Dorothy
Jo_cubstar
Me neither tbh she doesn’t seem the emo music type, I’d have pegged her as into pop or country lol
Tan
My Chemical Romance has charted on the US pop charts a number of times, including with this song (albeit Dorothy was a baby at the time)
Coatl
The important thing now is that the song fits the situation.
clif
Sorry for the report, Willis. Clumsy fingers on a tablet.
I was going to say that the song doesn’t have to fix the situation in order to be cathartic, but I seem to have slipped over into an alternate universe where Coatl said “fit the situation” rather than “fix the situation. ”
Either that or I should wake up before reading and commenting.
Savail
I feel like country would be a big stretch. Pop less so, but still a no.
Granted, I’m likewise having trouble coming up with any suitable alternatives. My mind says videogame music, but we haven’t really had any evidence that she does (or ever did) much gaming. On the other hand, she does strike me as someone who would be into music that does interesting things with either instruments or vocals, though. Like heavy metal with an accordion, rock with a violin, crazy tongue-twisters, unusual vocabulary…things like that.
bemisawa
Chamber rock!
…or accordion metal, I suppose.
Axel
my thoughts for her are mostly pop/adult contemporary/soft rock, mostly the places where the genres overlap. That’s what my kind of similar friends would listen to at her age (though most of them also had one or two more interesting picks too)
also this isn’t a genre but I see like… inspirational music? The two songs that for some reason came to my head for her were ‘you raise me up’ (not that I see her singing that about anyone) and ‘breakaway’ (though I don’t know if Americans listen to Kelly Clarkson, and it’s not 2004)- that kind of theme
Axel
I stand by this whole comment, but tbh ‘adult contemporary’ on its own seems like a good summary of Dorothy’s persona (at least, pre-tragedies)
ian livs
Oh, we definitely listened to Kelly Clarkson
Drew Hargrave
Not to bully you too hard but.. AMERICAN IDOL, Kelly Clarkson, not being listened to by Americans would certainly be amusing.
Axel
I got mixed up, thought she was on Canadian Idol (in my defence, I didn’t watch either show). They sure seemed to play her music like it was CanCon
Needfuldoer
I bet she’d listen to uptempo pop country, but probably not modern
“blue jeans truck girl beer boots truck” bro country or old-school country. Her playlists must have some Carrie Underwood and LeAnn Rimes in them.
ValdVin
That axiom on what guys sing v. what gals sing in the country genre is dangerous valid.
“Bro country” v. Carrie Underwood’s breakout hit is a great example.
ValdVin
(Dangerous is a weird autocorrect for “dang”.)
Needfuldoer
There I Ruined It hit the nail on the head with that one.
My folks have Lonestarās My Front Porch Looking In on heavy rotation at their house. I canāt stand the sound of it anyway, and I get that itās supposed to be heartwarming and sentimental, but I canāt shake the mental picture of a useless dad standing there watching his wife struggle to get their two little kids out the door.
What happened to Brooks & Dunn, Alan Jackson, Garth Brooks country?
ValdVin
Yeah, I get what you mean.
In rock, it’s sweat and energy and “hope I die before I get old”. Pop? “Pop will eat itself”: Be catchy, and if it sounds passe in five years, no matter.
There’s a…Zen(?) to country. The themes may be somewhat limited, but the ways to vary the connection to the audience can be made anew.
I’m not the only one taking new country songs and thinking about Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, George Jones & Tammy Wynette, etc, and hoping they’re as good.
Antsan
I feel like she may listen to Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada and the like.
GholaHalleck
Gerard Way is probably close enough to Dark Emo Danny looks-wise to trigger *something* in teenage Dotty.
HueSatLight
I think a lot of children hear mostly the songs their parents (and older siblings) listen to, up to a certain age. And I can see Dorothy not getting super into her own musical interests (yet).
Bogeywoman
Danny was playing welcome to the black parade on the uke at one point, so plausibly one of them (or a third secret friend) rubbed off on the other.
pope suburban
Oh lord MCR is *such* a Danny band, I bet he was the one who got her into it.
Mr D
For whomever this concerns, this is the song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIqBXPtolcw
Also, like, when the comic first came out it would make sense she’d know the song by heart, given the album would have come out when she was a teenager.
But current timeline, the song came out- wait, before she was even born ??? oh god making me feel olda
Needfuldoer
It’s plausible. Most of the music I listen to was released before I was born.
clif
Mr. D, you’re not old until you read a discussion like this and realize you don’t recognize half the genres mentioned.
clif
You want to ask questions like “Is dark-pop folk-punk a thing?
Xujhan
Yeah it’s somewhere in between bubblegum death pop and pseudoironic post-jazz.
milu
I think it’s cute how watsonian this whole thread is.
But Doylistically speaking, i think Willis simply doesn’t listen to a lot of music. They like MCR. So their characters more or less all like MCR.
HueSatLight
Are you sure english language music from the 60s to the early 2000s isn’t just really really good? According to Star Trek it will continue to be quite popular for centuries.
Needfuldoer
Not just that, the crew of the Enterprise D loved
public domainclassical musicthat Paramount didnāt have to pay licensing fees to use!Yumi
They went, “How can I convey that Dorothy is not okay?” and the answer was right there.
FlamestAndLight
Idk i really don’t see it. I imagine just classical music, well specifically the Classical and Boroque Eras
clif
Centuries from now, Classical Music will come to mean anything before Jazz-Rap Fusion. The Boroque period will remain distinct and will have a resurgence in popularity from time to time, though of course it will have to be altered and fixed for postmodern ears. This will not be done with the rest of the then-classic ouevre because, as we all know, if it ain’t Boroque you don’t fix it.
nicoleandmaggie
If she’s like me she at that age, she has really wide-ranging tastes. I did like classical, but I also liked alternative, heavy metal (both old and contemporary), was learning to like 70s music I’d previously not appreciated from my new friends, showtunes, operetta, opera (got a bunch of my friends into opera…), would soon get into a capella, and liked just basically everything except techno and country.
People have always been really surprised that I don’t like Ballet (my sister does), even though I like opera, but like… I like what I like, not what people think my type likes. (I don’t have the attention span for music without words being anything but background music.)
Scarlett
I feel like Dorothy would be into stuff like Liz Phair, Fiona Apple, and other artists like that. I think that Ruth would be the one to sing MCR and Dorothy would be singing Jewel, but it was probably reversed for characterization reasons
Imogen
I’d think Dorothy looked up songs she might want to sing before karaoke–like, searching keywords, finding songs that felt emotionally appropriate–but I don’t think she had that level of ambition here.
Dave Van Domelen
Can’t be off key if you’re on no recognizable key in the first place!
Dean
If you’re off key, just sing louder!
NGPZ
“People talk loud when they wanna sound smart, so if we play loud, then people will think we’re good!”
— Squirdward Tentacles
Needfuldoer
How off-key can you get when the original song is practically screaming? Its not like she’s trying to sing Yesterday Once More.
Proxiehunter
See, the emotional honesty of this is probably good for Dorothy.
clif
Dumbing of Age 14: She’s Not Holding Up a Liquor Store Badly So I’m Ultimately Considering This a Win
DashWallkick
Yeah, she never admits when she’s overdone it, so we end up in this weird place of “nothing is wrong, ever,” and when people point it out she just kind of doesn’t correct them. This is good.
Sirksome
I guess Dottyās not good at singing. Too bad.
sultryglebe
Having done this song, the first two verses are hard to do on key, but then if you make it through the volume and delivery changes and finish strong, no one remembers the first two verses.
Imogen
IMO, she urgently needed to be bad at this. The last thing she needs is another thing to be Perfect at. A new hobby with the same bad mentality isn’t the way.
HueSatLight
Fervently bad. Even if the fervor is from frustration, not joy.
anonymsly
I agree. She needed to be bad at this, and for everything to be okay afterwards and/or to feel good about it after. Weāll see if that happens.
Mark
I am now rehearing Arlo Guthrie saying, “well that was horrible.”
Imogen
if you wanna end war and stuff you gotta sing loud!
Poskie
That last panel Dorothy is absolutely iconic.
clif
And yet I don’t see it as anyone’s avatar yet.
pope suburban
Also, I love that it’s preceded by a panel of Jennifer and Ruth, because they are wearing-out, both in general and in specific to Dorothy right now, with this whole we’ll-save-you scheme. Brilliant, 10/10 no notes.
shadowcell
tragically, this will be the thing that dooms her presidential campaign thirty years later
shadowcell
the Keener Scream, if you will
Proxiehunter
The Keener keen.
keen
verb
keened; keening; keens
intransitive verb
1 a: to make a loud and long cry of sorrow : to lament with a keen
b: to make a sound suggestive of a loud cry of sorrow
a keening siren
2: to lament, mourn, or complain loudly
True Survivor
Oh man, that is brilliant. Willis plays the long game with the patience and brilliance of master strategist. I am once again filled with a small sense of wonder (and envy).