The ninth of the 26 songs is called "Senseless Violence". Scroll down below the following video for the lyrics and a brief discussion of how this song ties into the project. A blog post which lists all 26 songs, including 1 video for each song can be found by clicking here.
A direct link to this video can be found at revver.com/video/384964/senseless-violence/
For most of the the 1980's and into the 90's I was music director/composer for the local professional theatre company here in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, the Globe Theatre. I wrote the music and lyrics for this song originally for a "musical comedy about what drives people to fascism" called Resuscitation of a Dying Mouse back in 1986 (spoken text and original concept for the play was by the Globe's playwright-in-residence, Rex Deverell). Ron Scott created the above video using footage from archive.org, while the version of the song we're hearing here is still the original 1986 recording, which is why it sounds the way it does, with 80's drum machine and samples.
So what does this song have to do with this way of imagining the dimensions? One of the important ideas is "cusps": if the fourth dimensional line of time comes from a probability space in the fifth dimension, then there can be long stretches where we all go about our lives uneventfully, but then an important "branch" happens that moves us to a very different trajectory. Some of those branches are good, some are bad, some are just branches where we were faced with a choice which we made or chose not to make. To quote from the book:
We all have parts of our day where we are completely unaware of the passage of time. In the Julian Jaynes point of view, these would be the parts of our day when the “narrator voice” of our consciousness ceases its constant monologue, and we merge back into the unified point of view of our ancestors, and, indeed, of most other living things. At those moments, we continue to act as quantum observers, but there is nothing remarkable about the process to stick in our memory.
What we do remember are the moments where an important branch occurred in the “straight” line of our fourth dimensional experience. Thinking fifth-dimensionally, our personal timeline (or “world-line”) might be proceeding uneventfully, but then we reach the moment where a major decision, a random event, or the actions of others resulted in a blossoming or a branching extending out from that “straight” line of our life-path. Everyone remembers what they were doing the moment they saw the World Trade Center towers collapse. Everyone remembers the day they won a big prize or the day they saw a loved one die. And even with perfect strangers, we are drawn to the moments we recognize as being important cusps in that person’s life. This is why it is human nature to want to drive slowly by the car accident, trying to catch a glimpse of what happened, or why we all will look at the newspaper picture of the latest lottery winner. No matter whether the event was good or bad, fortunate or unfortunate, we all have a tendency to think “what if that had been me?”
SENSELESS VIOLENCE
words and music (c) by Rob Bryanton (SOCAN)
Senseless violence (Senseless violence!)
Crime in the streets (Crime in the streets!)
Don’t talk to strangers (Don’t talk to strangers!)
Or people you meet (Cause they could be just as dangerous!)
These are dangerous times that we live in
These are dangerous times that we live in
Senseless violence (and you can’t get away)
All the latest atrocities on the six o’clock news
Everybody’s cranin their necks to see the view
And you are too
Somebody killed a cop parked at a roadside restaurant
Somebody went crazy pulled out a gun
Shot up the place, just for fun
Senseless Violence (Senseless violence!)
Crime in the streets (Crime in the streets!)
Don’t talk to strangers (Don’t talk to strangers!)
Or people you meet (Cause they could be just as dangerous!)
These are dangerous times that we live in
These are dangerous times that we live in
Senseless violence (and you can’t get away)
You got your foot on the brake
Cause you can’t take your eyes off the car crash scene
You’re all movin so slow, wonderin who it might have been
It’s a little obscene
When you see the need to feed upon such butchery
Get some popcorn and coke and find a seat
It’s solid entertainment on the silver screen
Senseless Violence (Senseless violence!)
Senseless Violence (Senseless violence!)
Senseless Violence
Here are some other blog entries that touch upon the ideas from this song:
FAQ 7 - Isn't Free Will and Illusion?
You Can't Get There From Here
Infinity and Impulse Control
See No Future
Your Sixth-Dimensional Self
The Dark Side
Death?
Next song: 10 of 26 - Addictive Personality
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