The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

(cover to the album V for Vendetta by David, released by Plain Recordings)

That man Pádraig Ó Méalóid continues to add to the Glycon LiveJournal of Alan Moore ephemera, this time with a musical selection, posting up various Moore-related album covers from across the years, some of works written and performed by Alan, some with other artists drawing on his words or film music based on his stories. I must admit the only one here I have is the Flash Girls’ Maurice and I, which also boasts lyrics by Neil Gaiman as well as Alan. Alan’s lyrics for Me and Dorothy Parker are appropriately biting for that famed writer and acidic wit and the Flash Girls deliver it in just the right manner, humorous but dark edged, like a custard pie fight with hidden razor blades in the pastry. In fact I can’t resist sharing those lyrics with you here:

“When my thumbs both started aching I just sat down by the road

To read the newspapers I’d got stuffed in my shoes

I had a double-barrelled twelve-gauge and a long red leather coat

And a phone number in Cleveland but, but I was not certain whose

And so I didn’t see the car pull up, I heard the brake pads squeal

It was an Oldsmobile, as hot and black as sin

And there she sat behind the wheel; she said “You look just like I feel.”

She said, “My name’s Dorothy Parker,” and she told me to get in,

We found a lonely filling station right outside Miami Beach

It was too good an opportunity to miss

The old man started up to screech; I slipped two shells into the breech,

She pulled a pen out of her garter and said, “Let me handle this.”

And then she cut him with an Epigram and slew him with a word

We took his cash, filled the Oldsmobile with fuel

And at the motel later, in my mouth she pulsed like a bird

And I have never known a woman half as funny; half as cruel…

…I guess it all got out of hand, became a verbal killing spree

I’d shoot to wound, but when she spoke they all dropped dead

Though every headline in the country featured Dorothy and me

We were too young and drunk to care, too much in love and too well read

We’d lacerate each other or our friends behind their backs

We’d screw all night or lay in anger side by side

She was like poetry between the sheets, okay in the sack

And every word so sad and true we laughed until we cried

They caught up with us in Fresno when she cached some bad reviews

In a position she had no way to defend

And I don’t know if the SWAT team or the heartbreak or the booze

Was what shot her up so badly by the end

I wanted to surrender but she fought to the last line

She said, “Let’s shoot our way outside and make a stand.”

I laughed and said, “Age before beauty,” she replied, “Pearls before swine.”

And we went out with both lips blazing and a pen in either hand…”

(lyrics to Me and Dorothy Parker, written by Alan Moore and performed by the Flash Girls on the album Maurice and I)

(cover to the Flash Girls album Maurice and I, which includes songs written by Alan Moore  and Neil Gaiman, as well as boasting a cover from the excellent Michael Zulli)