Laugh

Watching the movie The Shining showed me the power music and image manipulation can have on our reception of a certain image or subject.  Throughout the movie, we are treated with several images that are not inherently frightening, yet somehow they give us an uneasy, chilling feeling.  Whether it is the creeping piano accompanied with strings playing as Wendy and Danny walk through the maze, or the camera angle placed directly behind Danny on his tricycle, causing you to fear and anticipate what will be around each corner he turns, every element of the movie is perfectly designed to create a tense feeling.

This idea of how music and image manipulation can change a subject's meaning so drastically reminds me of a song by Danish electronic group Lazyboy called "Underwear Goes Inside Your Pants."  What fascinates me about this song is that it takes a standup act performed by comedian Greg Giraldo, and sets a completely different tone around it, turning it into a disturbing social statement.  While people may laugh at these words in the environment of, say, a comedy club, the dark strings arrangements, as well as the heavy beat and plodding bass line, used in the song give it a somewhat darker, less comic quality.  The content of Giraldo's act then turns from a series of irreverent yet harmless jokes to a presentation of many of the problems and evils that exist in the world.  Thus, while the humor still may be present in the words heard in the song, they seem to demand a graver approach.

The use of images in the video is also very effective.  From the clips of homeless people singing the words of the chorus, to the several words and images that cross the screen, the video serves to directly add to the words of the narration, adding a more serious tone to the song, while somehow also bringing out the comic elements to it.  This brings about another notable factor of the video: the choice of images.  These images seem to clash between serious, grim clips of the real world, and oddly "humorous" pictures and cartoons.  This causes that same confusion that the song seems to create--while the the narration is taken from a standup comedian's act, the song itself is dark and disturbing.

Like The Shining, I feel this song by Lazyboy also reflects the kind of mood music and images can set on a subject, and what kind of a difference they can dictate on said subject.  Through the manipulations of sounds and images, one can make a child on a tricycle appear frightening, and the humor of a comedian sound disturbing.

You can watch the video to Lazyboy's song here.

--Ryan