{"id":2455,"date":"2021-10-28T22:06:18","date_gmt":"2021-10-29T03:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/?p=2455"},"modified":"2021-11-22T12:54:56","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T18:54:56","slug":"lx-commentary-18-i-went-with-some-friends-to-see-the-flaming-lips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/lx-commentary-18-i-went-with-some-friends-to-see-the-flaming-lips\/","title":{"rendered":"LX Commentary #18: I Went With Some Friends To See The Flaming Lips"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Benji Hughes rarely discusses the stories behind songs in interviews, but when he does this one is frequently cited as “a play by play.”<\/p>\r\n

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Impressive attention to detail!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n

Writing the L Extreme<\/em>\u00a0version as a play by play did not work at all. I probably struggled with this chapter most of all.

The song chronicles a real-life Flaming Lips concert<\/a> at The Orange Peel<\/a> in Asheville, NC on 4\/17\/03\u2014a rainy Thursday.

Trying to shoehorn an April road trip into a plot that may or may not start on Halloween ate up a lot of unnecessary mental capacity, but I gave it a go to see where the story took me.

Over in lyrical word association land, the keys were:<\/p>\r\n

The Flaming Lips
Eating Mushrooms
Jessica & L Dropped By
Way Too Much MDMA
Can’t Remember Anything At All<\/p>\r\n

Early on I played with this idea of ordering a whole lot of mushroom-centric dishes from room service to subvert the trippy expectations of the song but to still have a crazy, hallucinogenic event occur. And given what we knew so far about L & Jessica, having them “drop by” together<\/em><\/strong> was a pretty big bomb to drop.<\/p>\r\n

It took a real long time for me to figure out exactly how to make the mechanics of this dropping by work, but once I did the chain reaction of falling dominoes felt perfect. Evilon, the confidentiality clause, Frank’s purpose, L’s past job as a paralegal, and the ultimate ending of the book all snapped together with less massaging than expected.<\/p>\r\n

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“This wasn’t Slow Century, but it may have been the next best thing. The hand-drawn title at the top included The Fearless Freaks beside an inaccurate orange representation of the United States flag.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n

The last missing piece was killing the road trip so this pivotal scene could be set in the apartment instead of the Haywood Park. How was I going to write a chapter about a Flaming Lips concert without a Flaming Lips concert? Once again a song lyric held the answer:<\/p>\r\n

“…it’s my favorite band I’ve got their DVD…”<\/em><\/p>\r\n

Pavement has a DVD. So do the Flaming Lips…<\/p>\r\n

It wasn’t easy (Zurich was most certainly stained), but thinking back to how disparate beats in multiple songs & chapters came together on one inspirational night makes me glad I took on this challenge to begin with.<\/p>\r\n

Sometimes I almost forget how great that night really was…<\/em><\/p>\r\n

Other tidbits:<\/p>\r\n