Quiz's Theme Song? · 10:23pm Jul 2nd, 2014
I have never thought in terms of music. Others can give characters or people theme music, they can even imagine background music for scenes they read. None of these things ever suggests music to me.
But I think I've found Quiz's theme music.
Of all the chapter titles I've written my favorite is chapter 3 of "Quizzical" - "It's My Party And I'll Hide If I Want To." But it never once occurred to me to write a Quizzical parody of the original tune. It took toafan to make this obvious and natural leap for me.
#12 · 13w, 3d ago · · ·
I saw that chapter title, and I've listened to the song, so the first thing that popped into my head...
For those who haven't heard it before:Chorus:
It's my party, & I'll hide if I want to,
I'll hide if I want to, hide if I want to
You would hide too, if it'd happened to you
(and you know you would, too)
Nopony knows just where Quizzical's gone
It's almost like she's ran away
Now why would she want to do that?
We just wanted to play
(Chorus)
Go on without me, keep dancing all night
I don't actually mind
While you're at it please leave me alone
I just wanted to hide
(Chorus)
Here I petered out. I've got a good Twilight line for the second line of the third verse (/Twilight appeared right behind/), but can't make a Pinkie line to work as the first line (closest I've got is /that pony Pinkie just burst through the door/, and I'm not remotely satisfied with that). And I haven't got any clue what the other two lines would be. I'm hoping that reading the chapter might inspire me.
Is it good? Well, it's good practice...
I'm still not satisfied with this Pinkie line, but everything else I can think of ends up including a swear word (the d word), which I don't wanna do. But the chapter did bring inspiration, and even though the others were written beforehand I wanna get this down:
That pony Pinkie just burst through the door
Twilight appeared right behind
It seems that Twist has made something for me
How will I get these notes down in time?
That was weeks ago, and at the time I was delighted but thought little else about it. But since then I've found myself humming along with the original Lesley Gore tune (it's on the sound track at my restaurant). And in my head I hear Quiz singing.
So, is this Quizzical Greystone's theme music? It'll need a new arrangement, the original big bass accompaniment won't do at all. Quiz is not a trumpet kind of gal. Maybe some strings? Or a flugelhorn solo (the flugelhorn being the trumpet's pudgy nerdier cousin). I don't know, I don't think musically.
Oh, and the title would have to be changed to "It is my party, and I shall hide if I want to" of course.
One last thing. Many of you hear Quiz's voice, and I love most of the interpretations you have for how she sounds. I've never told you how I hear her. Well, to me she sounds like a flattened version of SARAH the smart house from Eureka. This is mainly because I can do the voice (it is done by a man, after all, though Neil Grayston has a higher voice than me). It's how I read her at my monthly writer's group meet.
On a totally unrelated note, please read Our Little Accident, it could use some love.
That would be pretty cool. Someone should do this.
There's a far more obscure new wave track from 1980, You'll Always Find Me in the Kitchen at Parties by Jona Lewie. You'll always find Quiz in the alcove at parties.
Only if you don't apply the same change to the chorus. Undoing the contractions breaks the scansion. You have to maintain the right syllable count, or the entire thing goes off track. Song lyrics are just poetry put to music, and you can't go changing the rhythmic feet, or the shoes don't fit, and then you can't dance to it!
...I think my brain Pinkies took over that paragraph at some point.
In any case, this is certainly in the right spirit. If I may offer an alternative, there's Jonathan Coulton's ode to social anxiety, "Big Bad World One." Aside from being written from a male perspective, it's basically a description of what Quiz's life would've been without Ponyville. Plus, there's the line "What if the best that I can be just isn't good enough?/Isn't it better not to know?"