the brief

answering the eternal question — if naked ladies sang about a bear that shat in the woods, would it be much ado about nothing? (a: of course)

I have to be admit that funi-flavour karosongs crack me up. I often find an almost Shakespearean royal fool in these songs, calling out the king's madness, the courtiers' foppery, the silly blindness of power. A fool with my own sense of humour but on steroids. And overall more polished.

They tickle me fancy, as a vaguely historical re-enactor might quoth.

But they don't always tickle me memory. I have little memory of this song channeling; except that I first thought it was one that I had spontaneously channeled while watching Jesse Cook perform at an outdoor festival.

ever find yourself sitting around thinking about nothing?
i don't mean nothing at all.
I mean we all think about nothing at all all the time
and all the rest of it's nothing important

no what i'm talking about is nothing
the real nothing you know like
is nothing times zero nothing? or is it zero?

shii … never thought of that
ah who cares

nothing says we have to be except
as we are — nothing says
nothing says we have to live except
as we do — nothing says

And it was a hoot right from the get-go, a tongue-stumbling hoot — verbally playful like Better run boy and run-on staccato like The nightmare run.

But way harder to sing than either of those first funi-flavour songs. Faster than either. More words in the same amount of time. Verging on philosophical at times, banging up against surreal the rest of the time.

but if nothing says nothing does nothing happen
or does nothing unhappen?

do trees still fall in the forest? maybe.
do bears still shit in the woods? who cares? shit's
got nothing to do with nothing!

but if nothing said nothing when that bloody bear
shat in the woods was it all just a big nothing burger?

and what does nothing burger decompose into any way?

into a something? sentient?

It was surreal but funny. And it gave what is still one of my favourite lyric lines.

could that mean we're all just nothing burger rot?
self-deluded sentients traipsing like fools
across the universe as so called man

Yeah it could mean that. I mean why not? Unless things aren't what they seem to be. . .

weird eh?
these are the kinds of thoughts i have late at night
when i've woken up with nothing to do except
learn each dripping nipple of the ceiling stipple by heart

when there's nothing to think about except nothing and
that's nothing worth thinking about

when nothing seems real but nothing feels fake and
nothing you say makes any sound

when nothing doffs its hat, grins and says
'here's looking at you nothing'

By this point in the lyrics channeling, I was just along for the ride. Mostly just trying to get my tongue around the delivery of all those lyrics.

but if nothing winks, pulls you in close and whispers
‘at least we'll always have nothing’
you better watch out because — take my word for it —
nothing's up to nothing good

and nothing good can come of that, no nothing good
can come of nothing up to nothing good
and nothing good can come of that, no nothing good
can come of nothing up to nothing good

Post-script

For some but not all songs, I do get a sense of a current artist that might 'fit' the song. I always felt that this would be a great Bare Naked Ladies piece, hence the reference in the song slug.