The Rain King ([info]cadhla) wrote,
2005-09-26 20:28:00
  • Mood: creative
  • Music: Seanan McGuire, 'Dorothy.'

Song: Dorothy.

Pick me up, then put me down,
Spin my whole damn world around;
I don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore.
Gray dissolves to emerald green --
Children’s stories can play mean,
And no one wants to tell me what’s the score.

          So you think you know my tale,
          The secret story of Dorothy Gale,
          The girl who rode the whirlwind to a land that man forgot?
          Just forget what you’ve been told --
          All that glitters is not gold.
          Some little things got left out, and a little means a lot.

I was tired of seeing gray;
Guess that’s why I ran away,
A twister in the body of a girl.
There’s no time for a backwards glance,
No chance you’ll get a second chance
When black clouds of the future start to curl.

          Sharper than a serpent’s tooth,
          The lies they tell us in our youth,
          Filled with pretty poison that will set your soul to rot.
          There’s no way to run or hide
          When the future is denied --
          Some little things get broken, and a little means a lot.

                    Scarecrows dangle as a warning to the wise;
                    Careful now, be wary.
                    Dragons lurk and witches lie.
                    Careful, now, these woods are scary.
                    Play for keeps and play to win,
                    I still don’t know where I’ve been,
                    But I know the fix I’m in --
                    Can this broken pathway bear me home?

          So you think you know this tale,
          The secret story of Dorothy Gale --
          The girl who just got swept up in a fate she never sought?
          If you know the way things go,
          Tell me, ‘cause I need to know.
          Some little things got left out, and a little means a lot.
          It really means a lot.

Ain’t no silver slipper waiting here to take me home.

Author's note: If this seems to lack context, you should really take a look at Dorothy, a photo comic published by the folks behind [info]dorothy_of_oz. Most excellent.
Tags: comics, lyrics

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  • 21 comments

[info]hobbitblue

September 27 2005, 03:46:35 UTC 6 years ago

Weirdly, I can half hear that being sung by [info]the_gwenzilliad with her unique harping as accompaniment. It works well like that, your stuff always gives me little personal concerts in the brain :)

[info]cadhla

September 27 2005, 03:49:02 UTC 6 years ago

...dude. Now so can I. That would be neat.

I'm still deliberating on whether to send a copy to the folks over at [info]dorothy_of_oz.

[info]hobbitblue

September 27 2005, 03:58:15 UTC 6 years ago

Maybe you should ask her? :)

Oh do, I bet they'd love it!

[info]cadhla

September 27 2005, 04:02:16 UTC 6 years ago

I have pointed them. Let us hope they slay me not.

[info]ideaspace

September 27 2005, 09:53:55 UTC 6 years ago

Hi, this is Mark, writer of Dorothy. Thank you very much.

A twister in the body of a girl is pretty much exactly the right vision of our Dot Gale. What a great tag line. I should have used it in the ads.

If you know the way things go,
Tell, ‘cause I need to know.

Well, we do have to keep some secrets...

[info]cadhla

September 27 2005, 15:27:20 UTC 6 years ago

First off, in my embarassed little 'spellcheckers can't fix stupid blonde women transcribing what they've been singing to themselves for the last hour' way, I am amused by the fact that one of the lines you seized on -- 'If you know the way things go,/Tell me, 'cause I need to know' -- was, of course, the only line I posted with a missing syllable. I rock in my stupidity! Or, well, something. That said...

Welcome, and wow! I didn't actually expect you to drop by. You're welcome, and thank you, for the comic, which is amazing, and I should have a decent MP3 for you before too terribly long. (I can record scratchy voice tracks at home, which is how I get other people to learn to accompany me, but they don't get the feeling across as well as the fully orchestrated stuff does. For some odd reason.)

I love that line, too, and you're welcome to abduct it and abuse it at will; I have no qualms. (It was almost cut, because I loathe rhyming 'girl', but sometimes, you just can't.)

I'm glad you're keeping some secrets, and I greatly look forward to following them down the road, whether or not it turns out to be a golden one. I clap my hands and squee when new issues hit the shelves, and spend too much time chatting at the booth at every con. So yay!

[info]cadhla

October 26 2005, 03:09:07 UTC 6 years ago

So's you know, we got the recording done this weekend (despite my astonishing vanishing voice), and should have the MP3 before much longer. And we creeped out a whole room in the singing, so it rocks most rockingly!

[info]griffen

September 27 2005, 05:30:07 UTC 6 years ago

You so rock, hon.

[info]cadhla

September 27 2005, 14:51:34 UTC 6 years ago

Thank you!

[info]the_s_guy

September 27 2005, 10:39:56 UTC 6 years ago

*dances*

I love watching new songs be created!

[info]cadhla

September 27 2005, 14:52:12 UTC 6 years ago

...wow, you must really like it around here, given how often my neurotic thrashing results in same.

[info]the_s_guy

September 28 2005, 08:06:14 UTC 6 years ago

Yup!

[info]pbristow

September 27 2005, 11:22:33 UTC 6 years ago

I didn't know the context beyond the original story as filtered via random snippets of the movie, but I thoroughly got sucked in by this anyway. Top marks.

(Heh. Twister. Sucked in. I made a feeble pun by accident. Heh heh...
OK I'll shut up now. [BLUSH])

[info]cadhla

September 27 2005, 14:52:54 UTC 6 years ago

Yay, weather puns!

If the song works without the context, I win. So yay, I win! Victory is mine, and is both a) sweet and b) shiny. Sweet, shiny victory, and also, hugs for you.

Glee.

[info]rysmiel

September 27 2005, 13:45:35 UTC 6 years ago

Have you read either Geoff Ryman's Was or any of Lost Girls ?

[ Ooh, comics icon ]

[info]cadhla

September 27 2005, 14:56:43 UTC 6 years ago

Nope.

I need a comics icon, but my scanner is broken, and I want it to be either Emma Frost (a very specific shot) or the Stepford Cuckoos.

[info]almeda

September 28 2005, 16:11:07 UTC 6 years ago

There's a musical version of Was coming out in Chicago Very Very Very soon. I have seen the bare-stage reading and IT ROCKED SO HARD I WAS CRYING THE WHOLE LAST ACT. I shall be squeeing and promoting it like hell in my livejournal sometime soonish (once I get the details).

[info]the_dark_snack

September 27 2005, 13:58:11 UTC 6 years ago

That was beautiful. Quite a compliment to the story. I love how most people know nothing of the OZ tales except what they've seen in the musical. The books themselves were very dark and not the technicolor mask that everyone seems to be familiar with. Every time someone has tried to make a film that is true to the actual stories it has bombed because people just won't accept the reality of the books.

I've felt that Wicked is to the book what MGM's musical was to it's book. Both are cute enjoyable stories but are not true to the story line or mood of the originals.

I'm listening to it mentally with a slower, moodier tune rather than a bright perky one. I hope I'm right there.

[info]cadhla

September 27 2005, 15:13:57 UTC 6 years ago

I've read all the original Oz books -- or as many as I could find, anyway; I'm sure I missed some of the RPT books, although I know I managed to hit all the LFBs -- and I adore the fact that it's the sort of world that you can see as either fluffy and childish, or dark and scary. Just like a proper fairy tale ought to be.

I can see your point about 'Wicked'. And since the book it's based on is more openly dark than the first Oz book, the fact that it's darker than the MGM musical doesn't destroy the comparison.

It's not a bright, perky tune; more of an angry one. 'Screw you for thinking I'm Judy Garland skipping down a goldleaf primrose pathway' is the abiding feeling, if that makes sense?

[info]djonn

September 27 2005, 16:36:32 UTC 6 years ago

My favorite filmed Oz to date was Return to Oz, which was very unfairly trashed in some quarteres by critics who should have known better (one of the rare occasions where I wanted to throw large heavy objects at Roger Ebert).

I've read all the Baum Oz books, plus a sprinkling of the later material. Only very recently read Wicked, which I would regard as quite a good novel if only the author had not tried to graft it onto the Baum material -- as an Oz book of any sort, I think it fails utterly. I think it's one of only two books I've ever read (out of tens of thousands) that I have actually literally thrown across a room.

For much better modern Oz riffs, I'd recommend either of these:

The Oz-Wonderland War: comics treatment, featuring not only Baum's and Carroll's world but the bizarre DC funny-animals of "Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew". Obscure and probably hard to find today, but astonishingly on-target in a great many ways.

The Emerald Wand of Oz: Brand new Oz book, just published this past summer, by superb writer Sherwood Smith (aka [info]sartorias), published under license from the heirs to the Oz properties. A good re-entry point for the material -- and also a must-read for any serious My Little Pony devotee, for reasons which will become clear as the story progresses.

[info]kengr

September 27 2005, 16:33:09 UTC 6 years ago

Check out Phillip Jose Farmer's "A Barnstomer in Oz" for a very *different* take on Oz.
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