January 9, 2003 (idea)

This happened when driving. I'm in my car with Undertow kicking full volume, and I'm screaming along with Maynard, except there's a problem: I don't know the lyrics. So when he's singing

Jesus, won't you fucking whistle
something but the past and done?

Jesus wants his fucking whistle
Something he want you done!

We all do it, but the beauty of singing in the car is the suspension of disbelief. Who in their right mind would do this if they could hear themselves? It's all about the volume of the music masking the ineptitude of your own voice.

But this time I (rightly or wrongly) blame Maynard. This is his problem: he's sings like most metal/alterative/(pick your music label) guys, except he can carry a note almost as well as Prince. But he's still kind of hard to understand, being that he sings with metal/alterative/(pick your music label) style, especially when he's with Tool. You get scattered words and the such, but that's it. Fill in the blanks.

So he's got a beautiful voice. It invites me to sing along. But he's also hard to understand. This invites me to mouth idiocies - in my own horrid garble that tries to sound intelligible. If Maynard sounded like Bryan Johnson, then I'd be alright. We'd both sing like croaking frogs, no problemo. But Maynard doesn't, and this is what happens:

I'm sitting at a red light when my shitty Honda Civic's factory-made car stereo peaks out and cuts off, leaving me alone screaming

Something he want you done!

in a siren-loud broken metallic tenor, ending my precious suspension of disbelief and leaving me to hear what a total jackass I sound like. Even worse, I caught the lady in the next lane watching me, and I think she thought I was possessed or something. What would you think of a guy sitting alone screaming "Something he want you done!" in a broken metallic tenor? Exactly. The next 20 seconds of that red light were pure hell.

Damn you Maynard.
Damn you Honda.
Damn you croaking singing voice.