I’ve been putting entirely random items into the Smorgasborg since at least early 1999. I don’t add them very often, because I have this blog. My rationale for the smorgasborg was This is a bunch of stuff I have no idea what to do with. So I figured: hey! I’ll put ’em up on the dang web! — and with that, I offer the complete lyrics to North Bronx French Marie aka Punk Rock T-Shirt Melting.
I am a huge fan of absurdist lyrics. My fandom of They Might Be Giants and Frank Zappa are evidence of that. I think what’s different about the lyrics of Stew/Negro Problem is tone and heft. I think that rather than having irony and satire as an endpoint, Stew’s work embraces irony and wordplay, but does not simultaneously reject what’s serious and emotional. Some of their work is silly, but much of it is melancholy and funny at the same time. I suppose that’s a pretty good description of me sometimes. Probably that’s what drew me to their work in the first place.
