Pretty. Odd. Story.
Someone at the PATD Boards came up with the question if there songs in Pretty.Odd. make a story all together
Well, I dont know if there's a story within the songs of Pretty.Odd. (and I dont really think that was the purpose for that cd), but I really liked his theory. So this is completely fictional, out of the top of my head, but this is my interpretation of the Pretty. Odd. Story, if there is one.
1.-We're so starving:
This song in words of Brendon is "very, very lighthearted, and not intended to be taken seriously in any ways" So this one might as well not be part of the actual story. But, in my interpretation, this story is not like a "one story-line" but a bunch of little tales told by the narrators (and yes, I mean narrators). So we start with a group of friends (I like to think there are four of them, for obvious reasons), that havent seen each other in a very long time and just meet again. "Oh how its been so long, we're so sorry we've been gone"
2.- Nine in the Afternoon
So this four friends meet again, one afternoon, they meet in a childhood place, maybe a house or some sort of room and they're just happy with life and happy to see each other again. "And we know that it should be, and we know that it could, and you know that you feel it too" . They're catching up and everything, but this four friends are very creative people, they like creating stories, and when they're together the inspiration hits them, so they naturally start creating stories together. And the whole slbum is just the four of them telling each other stories all night.
3.- She's a Handsome Woman\
So one of them starts telling a story (and I like it how it fits in here because I've always had trouble with this song), and his friends encourage him "Go on". So he starts talking about differents elements in childs stories, innocence and wolf in sheep disguises. And as the creativity increases, it makes them forget about their troubles "Accidents, left the evening in the back door, (creativity) filled the room, ceiling to the floor". And so each one of them start talking about the first draft of stories, and how they should keep a record of it.
4.- Do you know what I'm seeing.
This song its not a story yet, they just start talking how they're moving along, singing along with the world. But in reality they just don't care about the world outside of their little imagination-room. The weather being the rest of the world. And the clouds and the birds being thoughts that are just flowing out of their heads and how the birds (words) are just going to be the translators of those words.
5.- That Green Gentleman
And so things start getting pretty odd. "Little deaths in musical beds" being the little moments of brilliant thoughts, "So it seems Im someone I've never met", they're just playing characters, they're going to create stories and they're not going to be "themselves". "You will only hear this elegant crimes, Fall on your ears from criminal dimes.
They spill unfound from a pretty mouth." Again those are the narrators telling you they will only tell stories.
At this point, almost everything that follows that line is just a story about a guy who wants to know everything and go everywhere, and just wants to be everything he can. He's got this girl, who he left and never told he misssed and eventually she found another guy. But its okay because in the end "Everybody gets there and everybody gets their, and everybody gets their way." And things stay for this guy and he feels the same.
6.- I Have Friends In Holy Spaces.
This is a pretty easy story to get. Not much explanation needed, the only thing that's worth explaining here is that, at some point, this story its not only one person talking, but two. This story is a conversation of sorts.
7.- Northern Downpour.
This is a story about lovers, it starts with a guy telling his feelings, how everything seems fake. Then we can hear one of the narrators voice "And then she said she cant believe...." That first paragraph its just the interaction between lovers.
What its worth paying attention here is the constant iontervention of the story-tellers, and how that at this point its probably around midnight, or when the moon is at its highest point on the sky, and the whole "Hey moon, please forget to fall down" choris its not part of the story, but the narrators telling you they dont want this night to end.
They carry on with the story when they start singing, "The ink is running..." and the story can be resumed to two lovers that are appart, and miss each other. And the story pretty much ends with "Through playful lips made of yarn That fragile Capricorn Unraveled words like moths upon old scarves: I know the world's a broken bone, but melt your headaches, call it home" And thats also the message on this story.
So the four of them just end up saying how they dont want the night to end.
8.- When The Day Met The Night.
Thhis one is really easy to see, how it is a story, and how to identify the narrators voice. And it is a love story, but a tragic love story. The narrators voice at the beggining is kind of dark and sad, because in the end, even when "it was golden when the day met the night", day and night are never together. In this song you can hear all of the "narrators" voices when they sing "summer"
9.- Pas De Cheval.
In this one we have lots of interventions from the narrators too.
It starts with this story character, who is a really selfish kind of guy, telling you about a girl he could never forget him, "Oh, little did she know couldn't let me go already a part of her" But it jumps straight to the narrators telling you once again, they're just playing roles, even when people "just can't get a hold of it". And how they dedicate this story to them "We'll just sing it for them", giving away how they're playing thw "witnesses" of the story. And it returns to the selfish guy, telling you how he is the greatest thing you'll ever know, and then again to the narrators telling you how that's who that guy is, "but you'll never know until you're there".
Its a bit confusing with all the changes in point of view, but its basically the narrators telling you about this guy they met, and the story they witnessed. Yhe chorus is basically the narrators talking.
10.- The Piano Knows Something I Dont Know.
These are actually two different stories. One of the narrators starts telling them about this person who needs a reminder of himself to remember who he is on the inside, and they all agree "of course". It jumps straight to another story on how inspiration works on them, and all the middle story. "She is the smoke, she is dancing fancy pirouettes..." are just descriptions on how their creativity runs through their heards. "She" being creativity, or like a muse, playing with them, vanishing at will, dancing all around them, leaving and making them lose all their being and inspiration from one moment to another. Just to go back to them, reminding themselves who they are.
11.- Behind The Sea
In this one, one of the narrators is actually telling the story of a dream he had. "A daydream spills from muy corked head, breaks free of my wooden neck..." and since its a dream, it makes little sense at some point, and we can guess the four friends here are drinking, and having a good time, and they just start chanting at the end "Legs of wooden waves, waves of wooden legs"
12.- Folkin' Around
In this one, one of the friends is kind of telling a story, kind of telling a childhood experience he had. "Allow me to exagerate a memorie or two, Where summers lasted longer than, longer than we do" and then he starts talking about this girl he might have loved, but they grew appart and she became just another one of his memories, even when he still remembers her as it all had happened the day before "your melodie sounds as sweet as the first day it was sung"
13.- She Had The World
In this one they are telling the story about two guys and one girl, one of them loved a girl, she didnt loved him back. The other one was loved by the girl, but he was only "passing the time" with her. And the verses change between one guy telling his side of the story, and the other one.
14.- From A Mountain In The Middle Of The Cabbins
In here they tell the story about a girl who always thought of herself as some sort of divine person, but falls in love with a guy who is not good for her at all. She imagines the perfect life, with the house and a picket fence, but in reallity all of her wishes "they will sink like stones Slowly down a lonely well"
15.- Mad As Rabbits.
One last story for the four of them, the sun is arriving, and so they tell the story of Paul Cates, a business man who ended up as a mad homeless guy: happy in his madness. Kind of what the four friends did all night long, escaping from reality, telling stories, happy in their madness. And they're also saying goodbye to each other, they're saying goodbye to that rare madness night. "Stay asleep, and put on that cursive type, you know we live in a toy" They prefer living in a fantasy world, but they decide nevertheless, they will go on and "Reinvent Love".
God... If anyone reads this, Im gonna be so happy. But there, thats my interpretation of the Pretty.Odd.Story
and this was a great question. ^^
Well, I dont know if there's a story within the songs of Pretty.Odd. (and I dont really think that was the purpose for that cd), but I really liked his theory. So this is completely fictional, out of the top of my head, but this is my interpretation of the Pretty. Odd. Story, if there is one.
1.-We're so starving:
This song in words of Brendon is "very, very lighthearted, and not intended to be taken seriously in any ways" So this one might as well not be part of the actual story. But, in my interpretation, this story is not like a "one story-line" but a bunch of little tales told by the narrators (and yes, I mean narrators). So we start with a group of friends (I like to think there are four of them, for obvious reasons), that havent seen each other in a very long time and just meet again. "Oh how its been so long, we're so sorry we've been gone"
2.- Nine in the Afternoon
So this four friends meet again, one afternoon, they meet in a childhood place, maybe a house or some sort of room and they're just happy with life and happy to see each other again. "And we know that it should be, and we know that it could, and you know that you feel it too" . They're catching up and everything, but this four friends are very creative people, they like creating stories, and when they're together the inspiration hits them, so they naturally start creating stories together. And the whole slbum is just the four of them telling each other stories all night.
3.- She's a Handsome Woman\
So one of them starts telling a story (and I like it how it fits in here because I've always had trouble with this song), and his friends encourage him "Go on". So he starts talking about differents elements in childs stories, innocence and wolf in sheep disguises. And as the creativity increases, it makes them forget about their troubles "Accidents, left the evening in the back door, (creativity) filled the room, ceiling to the floor". And so each one of them start talking about the first draft of stories, and how they should keep a record of it.
4.- Do you know what I'm seeing.
This song its not a story yet, they just start talking how they're moving along, singing along with the world. But in reality they just don't care about the world outside of their little imagination-room. The weather being the rest of the world. And the clouds and the birds being thoughts that are just flowing out of their heads and how the birds (words) are just going to be the translators of those words.
5.- That Green Gentleman
And so things start getting pretty odd. "Little deaths in musical beds" being the little moments of brilliant thoughts, "So it seems Im someone I've never met", they're just playing characters, they're going to create stories and they're not going to be "themselves". "You will only hear this elegant crimes, Fall on your ears from criminal dimes.
They spill unfound from a pretty mouth." Again those are the narrators telling you they will only tell stories.
At this point, almost everything that follows that line is just a story about a guy who wants to know everything and go everywhere, and just wants to be everything he can. He's got this girl, who he left and never told he misssed and eventually she found another guy. But its okay because in the end "Everybody gets there and everybody gets their, and everybody gets their way." And things stay for this guy and he feels the same.
6.- I Have Friends In Holy Spaces.
This is a pretty easy story to get. Not much explanation needed, the only thing that's worth explaining here is that, at some point, this story its not only one person talking, but two. This story is a conversation of sorts.
7.- Northern Downpour.
This is a story about lovers, it starts with a guy telling his feelings, how everything seems fake. Then we can hear one of the narrators voice "And then she said she cant believe...." That first paragraph its just the interaction between lovers.
What its worth paying attention here is the constant iontervention of the story-tellers, and how that at this point its probably around midnight, or when the moon is at its highest point on the sky, and the whole "Hey moon, please forget to fall down" choris its not part of the story, but the narrators telling you they dont want this night to end.
They carry on with the story when they start singing, "The ink is running..." and the story can be resumed to two lovers that are appart, and miss each other. And the story pretty much ends with "Through playful lips made of yarn That fragile Capricorn Unraveled words like moths upon old scarves: I know the world's a broken bone, but melt your headaches, call it home" And thats also the message on this story.
So the four of them just end up saying how they dont want the night to end.
8.- When The Day Met The Night.
Thhis one is really easy to see, how it is a story, and how to identify the narrators voice. And it is a love story, but a tragic love story. The narrators voice at the beggining is kind of dark and sad, because in the end, even when "it was golden when the day met the night", day and night are never together. In this song you can hear all of the "narrators" voices when they sing "summer"
9.- Pas De Cheval.
In this one we have lots of interventions from the narrators too.
It starts with this story character, who is a really selfish kind of guy, telling you about a girl he could never forget him, "Oh, little did she know couldn't let me go already a part of her" But it jumps straight to the narrators telling you once again, they're just playing roles, even when people "just can't get a hold of it". And how they dedicate this story to them "We'll just sing it for them", giving away how they're playing thw "witnesses" of the story. And it returns to the selfish guy, telling you how he is the greatest thing you'll ever know, and then again to the narrators telling you how that's who that guy is, "but you'll never know until you're there".
Its a bit confusing with all the changes in point of view, but its basically the narrators telling you about this guy they met, and the story they witnessed. Yhe chorus is basically the narrators talking.
10.- The Piano Knows Something I Dont Know.
These are actually two different stories. One of the narrators starts telling them about this person who needs a reminder of himself to remember who he is on the inside, and they all agree "of course". It jumps straight to another story on how inspiration works on them, and all the middle story. "She is the smoke, she is dancing fancy pirouettes..." are just descriptions on how their creativity runs through their heards. "She" being creativity, or like a muse, playing with them, vanishing at will, dancing all around them, leaving and making them lose all their being and inspiration from one moment to another. Just to go back to them, reminding themselves who they are.
11.- Behind The Sea
In this one, one of the narrators is actually telling the story of a dream he had. "A daydream spills from muy corked head, breaks free of my wooden neck..." and since its a dream, it makes little sense at some point, and we can guess the four friends here are drinking, and having a good time, and they just start chanting at the end "Legs of wooden waves, waves of wooden legs"
12.- Folkin' Around
In this one, one of the friends is kind of telling a story, kind of telling a childhood experience he had. "Allow me to exagerate a memorie or two, Where summers lasted longer than, longer than we do" and then he starts talking about this girl he might have loved, but they grew appart and she became just another one of his memories, even when he still remembers her as it all had happened the day before "your melodie sounds as sweet as the first day it was sung"
13.- She Had The World
In this one they are telling the story about two guys and one girl, one of them loved a girl, she didnt loved him back. The other one was loved by the girl, but he was only "passing the time" with her. And the verses change between one guy telling his side of the story, and the other one.
14.- From A Mountain In The Middle Of The Cabbins
In here they tell the story about a girl who always thought of herself as some sort of divine person, but falls in love with a guy who is not good for her at all. She imagines the perfect life, with the house and a picket fence, but in reallity all of her wishes "they will sink like stones Slowly down a lonely well"
15.- Mad As Rabbits.
One last story for the four of them, the sun is arriving, and so they tell the story of Paul Cates, a business man who ended up as a mad homeless guy: happy in his madness. Kind of what the four friends did all night long, escaping from reality, telling stories, happy in their madness. And they're also saying goodbye to each other, they're saying goodbye to that rare madness night. "Stay asleep, and put on that cursive type, you know we live in a toy" They prefer living in a fantasy world, but they decide nevertheless, they will go on and "Reinvent Love".
God... If anyone reads this, Im gonna be so happy. But there, thats my interpretation of the Pretty.Odd.Story
and this was a great question. ^^