Ain't no Wonderland ;)

As I stated in one of my earlier blogs, Ryan Scott Oliver's 35mm is a musical exhibition in which songs are inspired by pictures or pictures are inspired by photographs. This particular song that I will be basing my project on, "Crazytown", is based off of the image down below. I also included a video of one of the first times the song was performed in 2009. In this version, two of my favorite singers, Natalie Weiss and Lindsay Mendez, sing the backing vocals, supporting the lead vocalist, Alex Brightman. Brightman and Mendez's voices both appear in the official soundtrack on streaming services like iTunes, Apple Music, and Spotify. The vocal quality of the song is brilliant in it's storytelling; each voice is distinctly eerie in it's own way but singers still manage to harmonize and blend with each other for technical purposes. 

You really only see a stripped down version of this song in the video because it isn't staged, and the singers are kinda just standing there offering their vocal chords. I saw the show at American Heritage a couple moths ago, and the way their director staged "Crazytown" was very similar to my initial vision of the song. The lead singer began and ended center while his supporting counterparts were always luring around him, like leeches, or the character's demons symbolically attached to him. To give more insight on the context of the song, here are the lyrics:

There's a hole inside my brain. Take a stroll down the drain to Crazytown. (You've fallen like Alice) Crazytown, (It's an anthropomorphic circus) Crazytown, But it ain't no Wonderland. I am running mid a road as I'm chased through a town psychotic. Used to jeering jackal much like my mother crying (Bee dee deep bee dee deep) You idle boy! And there's money on the ground, Pounds, yen, dollars, and the jackal's close behind. I escape from the dog as I dive through a stream of sea snakes, And I realize that this river is what separates the (bee dee deep bee dee deep) The east from the west. And I'm bitten from the east which is present To the west which is past and future. I nearly drowned in Crazytown. (You've twisted like Dorothy) Crazytown, (It's a nightmare technicolor) Crazytown, But it ain't no kind of Oz. I survive from the stream to discover a choking orgy. All those fuckers I have fondled in my fantasies, Turning blue turning to the idle boy (yeah you). They drag me inside. Passing, stroking (passing, stroking) And asphixiating me, Till my hard-on is so palpable I gotta go, gotta get out, gotta go, gotta go, gotta get out, gotta go. Wait (you) please, don't leave (yet). To a tower of doors. In the pocket of my dress I've got a copper key. Don't know the door it goes with but t

he fact is killing me that in the pocket of my dress I've got this eight inch copper key but I don't know the door it goes with and the fact is killing me. In the pocket of my dress I've got this eight inch copper key but I don't know the door it goes with but the fact is killing me. In the pocket of my dress I've got this eight inch copper key but I go door to door to door to door to door and woe is me and woe is me and woe is me and woe is me and woe is- Crazytown, (With a wardrobe like Lucy) Crazytown, (It's a Christ-like allegory) Crazytown, But it ain't no Narnia And there's no exit anywhere (You wing there like Wendy) I'm stripping clothes and stripping hair (You tragic fairy island) Moonstruck and naked I declare No, this ain't no Neverland Narnia Wonderland Oz And I watch from the window as I witness the town on fire. Everybody from the jackal to the the orgiastic mass expire. And the tower explodes Ripping me apart Head to heel to heart Till the tower explodes And see Me

The song is basically about living in a completely crazy mental state! I am eager to tell this song's story just as well as the original viewings and the picture itself did, but in my own handy way!