Jam Mechanics

Challenge: Transatlanticism

BUG'S SONG Title: Agamemnon Lyrics: I am aboard the Agamemnon, we are laying down a line It's gonna cross the ocean floor, the greatest project of our time A telegraph from Newfoundland will reach the Irish Shores but by by the time this note arrives you will not love me anymore

I am aboard the Agamemnon, laying cables in the sea For the purpose of the president to parley with the queen As for me, I've got this letter that I'll send you in the morn but by the time this note arrives you will not love me anymore

You will not love me by the time you read this note You told me you would wait if I had to go I keep your photo in a locket to remind me of my home

but while aboard the Agamemnon I have so much time to dream of a world where I can reach you with no middle-man between And maybe when we're done I'll get my turn, as a reward but I never got that chance, now you don't love me anymore When I made it to Niagara, you didn't love me anymore

You will not love me by the time you read this note You told me you would wait if I had to go I think of you so often with no way to let you know

This is only the beginning, this simple cable in the sea Soon we'll have radios and satellites and waves we cannot see No one'll know the pain of loving one they cannot reach

I'd commandeer the Agamemnon and I'd sail it back to shore it's just a faster way to learn that you don't love me anymore so I'll keep laying this cable for the lovers not yet born so that they may never hear "No, I don't love you anymore"

MATT'S SONG Title: The Tollbooth Lyrics: When Britain's national health service was launched in 1948 it set sail in the wake of the second world war when the country's citizens the upper and lower classes both the rich and the desperately poor had served together, side by side and the ones who survived the horrors came home demanding to no surprise more

we did not fight, they said in our millions just for things to return to the way they were we didn't die they said in our hundreds of thousands just to save a country where the leading cause of death is poverty and perhaps for the first time in british history the aristocrats and the working class agreed on something largely that arming the nation and teaching them how to fight and die for what they believe in makes their demands somewhat more convincing

and so barely three years after the soldiers had come home on july 5th, 1948 the british health system was torn out by the follicles and rebuilt in a new vision that it would be free at point of service, that no one, NO ONE, would be turned away or trapped into debt by lack of personal means that it would be available to everyone who walked through the doors of a hospital or a GP's office and that the well off wouldn't be able to skip the queue this was radical beyond comprehension a truly universal healthcare system doctors across the nation barred their doors and hired personal security so sure were they that the empowered impoverished would storm their offices demanding medicine and aid only to find on that monday morning a polite queue of people in need who for the first time were able to receive the treatment they would have had since birth if they had been born into a wealthier family

the trouble is healthcare is one of those futureproof industries like plumber people are always going to need water and if you can fix their pipes you are, within reason, set for life and the hospital and the doctor's surgery are no exception people are always going to get sick they're always going to get injured at the very very least everyone has to be born and everyone has to die and you would be an idiot would you not if you had the opportunity and the presence of mind to not set up a tollbooth at the well-worn bridges that lead into and out of this life

i am being faceitious of course who thinks like this who is so calculating and cruel that they would look at the legions of dying and sick and feel not compassion but greed who would see not the faces of their own parents, friends and children but a sea of investment a captured market a well of bottomless profit

it would be inappropriate for me to delve too deep into the catacombs that are the American Healthcare System if you are listening from those shores, then you know better than i do how it feels to live in fear of a broken bone of a cough that won't go away of a necessary surgery or a birth in the family I have personally met people who were having to choose between treatment for a treatable disease and a slow death So as to have something to leave their loved ones in their will A meagre windfall, after all, is infinitely preferable over a cascade of debt Maybe, at best, you are simply aware of how lucky you are To not fear these things as many do The privilege of being able to treat mild maladies as the inconvenience they are rather than an existential threat

I bring this up only because The profit machine that is the american healthcare system Is hungry And needs to be fed There is no such thing as too much money There is no endgame in an investment portfolio Where you find the princess in the very last castle and the credits roll There isn't a kill screen where the arcade machine craps out and kicks you back to the beginning The score just keeps getting bigger and bigger, the numbers getting longer and longer, Separated by decimal points and letters and commas And when the numbers get so unwieldy that we run out of space, Eh, we'll just start printing the end of year reports in landscape The machine needs to eat And the painkillers and bloodied sheets of 333 million people could only satisfy it for so long Its eyes, inevitably, have turned east

BUG'S SONG Matt's Challenge: And the Oscar goes to… Title: The Opera Lyrics: Let me tell you all a little ‘bout the theater if you wanna pack people deep in the seats you’re gonna plant seeds, play follow the leader lead’em to the end, breadcrumb, bird feeder

they say sex sells but so does drama they’re glued to their seats despite the genre the crowd is not complex at all they love The Phantom, hate the opera

The curtains dropped The camera’s stopped make ‘em drag you off the stage

They’ve cut the lights so my advice: make ‘em drag you off the stage

now you’re twenty minutes deep in your Oscar Speech you look down and the crowd’s all gone to sleep they all cut to commercials on repeat so you can drop the rehearsal, think on your feet

You don’t need dialog, and I’ll posit this all your drama should all be ubiquitous if the scripts in Spanish, no me habla love the phantom, hate the opera

The curtains dropped The camera’s stopped make ‘em drag you off the stage

They’ve cut the lights so my advice: make ‘em drag you off the stage

You’ve got your speech all written you can picture it now but your scripts not finished and you’re taking a bow

you’ve got your mantlepiece polished and your suit clean pressed spending all that profit with no budget invested

You’ve got your speech all written you can picture it now but your scripts not finished and you’re taking a bow

you’ve got your speech all written but you’re playing pretend cuz the Oscar, it goes to The Oscar, it goes to your head

MATT'S SONG Bug's Challenge: Take a sad story and make it happy Title: Fresh Cement Lyrics: fresh cement brand new shoes you and i talking it through though we've spun this story ten thousand times these exact beats these exact lines on this exact corner of this exact street the movie reel spins endlessly the credits roll no cheers or claps and when we're done we run it back

anyone would think we were rehearsing for something

fresh cement on a soundstage the dialogue becomes cliché we hit our marks we play our roles but we do it now with our eyes closed it's like a dance but we don't touch a boxing match without the punch take a bow great work today see you tomorrow for the matinée

anyone would think we were rehearsing for something

BUG'S SONG Matt's Challenge: BNE SZN (piano only!!) Title: Season Your Beanie Lyrics: I’ll eat my hat if you make it I’m not mad I’m just candid and someone just had to say it there’s no path where you’re headed and you can act all offended I’m a realist and I feel its best you never pretended that there’s a chance in a million you can be handsome or brilliant but you’ll crash like all the others so you can call me the villain one day we’ll look back and laugh, I’ll get a pat on the back but if you make it with your music I will eat my hat

Would like a salad on the side? we can sub it out for fries? We got a dad hat meal plan for 10.99 you can order a fedora that you’ll just adore we got a chef hat special, call it hat du jour Cuz I’ve got 30 milion reasons that can prove you wrong and 200 fans in london singing every damn song I’m rubbin salt in the wounds, just admit you’re defeated you can season your beanie, but you still gotta eat it

you’d eat your hat if I made it so I snapback with a menu when you throw all that shade if you took a bite of brim and didn’t like how it tasted you should’ve sampled the plastic long before you beret-ed

and hey, yeah, maybe you’re right a bit more often than not but you could choose to say nothing, it has no sticker or cost rubbin salt in the wounds to admit you’re defeated you can season your beanie but you still gotta eat it you can season your beanie but you still gotta eat it you can season your beanie but you still gotta eat it

MATT'S SONG Bug's Challenge: Cthulu (Radio-Friendly) Title: Get Deep Fried Lyrics: let's stay in bed all day we'll get away from here tomorrow if the monsters allow what did people ever talk about the television doesn't work right now sit with me beneath the nothing where the stars all used to be before they all went out

they're in the hallway at our door they're in the walls they're in the floor looks like it's all gonna end right as we begin

who called this son of a bitch half mile tall, man looks like a fish the deep one will swallow us all he can swallow my balls who spoke the summoning rite who's up for fresh calimari tonight the deep one? eat my ass more like get deep fried am i right

hentai tentacles gonna kick him right in the genitals he's gonna be like "this is terrible" i'm gonna be like "you look edible" elder god from the ocean floor I bet you wish you could sleep some more i'm your paralysis demon got hooked and you can't stop screamin

BUG'S SONG Matt's Challenge: Your First Memory Title: Memories Lyrics: There were roses in the garden My toys were on the lawn My brother rode a bicycle Watched closely by my mom

I toddled off the patio I often wandered off And quickly get corralled by My sweetheart of a dog

These are the details These are the memories These are the moments always cut from documentaries These are the details These are the memories That never stick

I was just a baby in the backyard Learning one thing at a time The shapes and colors turning Into object ‘fore my eyes

It was an early autumn evening The first I could recall I crunch the leaves beneath my feet My dad records it all

These are the details These are the memories These are the moments always cut from documentaries These are the details These are the memories That never stick

They called me in for dinner but Before I headed in They handed me a cup of kibble Filled up to the brim

I toddled to the doghouse Thats when God, she hit record My first memory is getting all my shit rocked by a bird

Can’t choose the details Can’t choose the memories Can’t choose the scars they leave so sudden, unexpectedly Can’t choose the details Can’t choose the memories I wish we weren’t so primed to focus on upsetting things Can’t choose the details Can’t choose the memories That seem to nest inside your head The awful details That form these memories But if I could instead I’d choose the details The little memories And make ‘em stick

BUG'S SONG Matt's challenge: First Contact (42 word max!) Title: AlIen Lyrics: When I open up my phone, you're the first name on my list An Alien emoji next to your name and I wish When I open up my phone I wasn't forced to reminisce but when I open up my phone you're the first name on my list

you're the first name on my list when I open up my phone the Typo from the time we met I chose to leave alone you're the first name on my list that will never phone home you're the first name on my list when I open up my phone

The first contact on my list, when I open up my phone the reminder of the time we met, the name I never chose but AlIen, alphabetically will not leave me alone

you're the first name on my list when I open up my phone

MATT'S SONG Bug's Challenge: Give me a (misunderstood) Christmas Song Title: A Christmisunderstaning Lyrics: it's the moment of the midwinter the time of yule through a log on the fire and let it burn every crackle and spark will represent a baby pig or a calf to be born next year

here he comes across the sky underneath cover of night he knows who has been naughty he knows who has been nice he punishes the wicked brings good tidings to the pure so huddle up beside the fire prepare for the coming of odin lord of frenzy weep for the coming of odin

it's december 25th and the children are playing with their new gifts oh the light of joy in the eyes of a child as the party winds down as the wine runs dry with snow on the ground we remember the night of the virgin birth

happy birthday mithras infant god savior of the people born from a rock slayed a bull with your bare hands so the souls of the sinful would be washed in the blood of the innocent