Reinventing Music

by Dashie04

Chapter 1: Wake Me Up

Author's Note:

This story is probably going to be a serious mess. However, I’m doing it anyways. I’d like to cordially thank the guy who commented on my story The Shad0Ws Within because your off-handed comment asking if it was an HiE not only recently gave me ideas on how that story should’ve happened (and may still happen if this goes well), but inspired this thing too.

It’s like Yesterday, but instead of The Beatles it’s just the entire scope of great Rock and Country tunes. I’m still doing research, but I have enough Blues songs to tangibly make an album, and the first couple chapters don’t require many anyways.

More character tags might be added as this goes on.

This is very much a passion project, as this sort of thing would be awesome to do regardless.

Influences: Yesterday, The Beatle, Fine Print (but it’s only an idea).

Where am I?

What happened to me?

Why the fuck do I have four feet?

All I know is that I was listening to my old Leadbelly album and I was just wondering what it’d be like to be those old Blues musicians. Sitting around with nothing but an acoustic guitar, and perhaps an upright bass and a drummer if you looked hard enough.

Next thing I know, I wake up in this world that is so brightly colored it’d melt my eyes. All the roofs are thatched, multicolored ponies.

Hold on...

Ponies?

Who the fuck gave me the LSD last night? Irene’s gone, broke up with me recently, so it couldn’t have been her.

Besides, I was wondering what it’d like to be Leadbelly, not wondering what shit The Beatles dropped while recording ‘I Am The Walrus’.

More pressingly, why do I have four feet?

I take a look at my feet, no, hooves. I am definitely a pony. A nice looking black one at that. At least compared to these almost insultingly Flash-animation quality ponies that look like a bag of Skittles, I got a good color.

I lift up my hand, no, hoof up to my head. There is a distinct point there. Cool, I’m a Unicorn. On a Newgrounds animation.

Why am I here, like seriously. What is this place?

Since no ponies seem to care about a pony who presumably just fell out of the damn sky, I stand up. I take a step and immediately fall, the entire center of balance is all screwed up and I don’t like it. I’m a distinctly non-human creature.

Also, where is my damn guitar? I had it right beside my bed. It’s nowhere to be seen. Not in my hooves, it wasn’t laying next to me. I mean, ponies can still play guitar right?

Oh yeah, because I am in this weird fucking world, I should probably go back to square one.

I am John Mercury, I think I have the coolest coincidence of a name ever. I’m not related to Freddie Mercury, nor am I named after John Lennon. I say that a guy with a name like that has a life of a musician ahead of him.

I took the incentive.

I’m the guitarist in a variety cover band, we’ve covered everything from Otis Redding to Metallica. The Beatles to Mumford & Sons, essentially we were an absolute Rock band.

Now I don’t have my phone with me to tell my bandmates,”Sorry I can’t make it to the next gig, I landed in a Newgrounds animation. I’m a Unicorn for the foreseeable future. Sorry. Find a different guitarist.”

Besides, it’s not like they would believe that. They would wonder what the heck I did.

I love music, I consider myself a listener of all well-known Rock tunes. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to be those legendary musicians. Last night was the first time I’d wished it aloud though. Irene just left me, our drummer quit when we started playing Progressive Rock. We tried playing 2112 once a couple nights ago, apparently it was too much for his two brain cells to handle, and I lost my Hey Jude/Revolution vinyl. Bad times all around.

I guess I just got overwhelmed. It’s one thing to play The Beatles, but being The Beatles? Again, it seems so cool.

So, here I am in this strange world. Figuring out my balance, I take a walk up the street. A pink pony, fluffy hair (mane?) comes up to me and gasps. VERY LOUDLY. In my face. She then takes off faster than Sonic the Hedgehog on crack.

OK, so all the ponies in this town also appear to be crazy. That was a neat observation. I literally just got here. Does that pink pony have like a radar for detecting new lifeforms that pop into the town?

Regardless, I take a walk up the street. I’m expecting to pass a sign that says like,”Welcome to Ponytown,” or something. Alas, my luck couldn’t be that fortunate. All I found was more ponies chatting amongst themselves. Not paying attention to the black Unicorn that doesn’t know how to walk properly because he’s a fucking human and humans are bipedal.

Regardless, I stumble my way up the street. Looking around for any sign of where I am.

When suddenly, something catches my eye. There’s a music store. It looks just as quaint as the rest of the town. Thatched rook, a small window to look though. However, my wandering eyes catch a glimpse of something amazing. Right in the window, is a nice acoustic guitar. Hickory, looks light, probably plays very well, too.

I walk into the store, and the clerk looks at me with a wide smile.

“Haven’t seen you around here, sir, what’s your name? Where are you from?”

“I’m John Mercury, I’m from America,” I say, wondering just how odd these ponies can get.

The clerk looks at me strange.

“Alright, Mercury, haven’t heard of America. Regardless, check out our stock, we hardly get any customers, so you must really want something.”

Well, that’s funny, they hardly get any customers. I thought these ponies would at least have a respect for music. It turns out that that pink lifeform detector isn’t the only crazy pony around here. Music is Worth Living For, as Andrew WK once said. I couldn’t agree more.

Speaking of which, wasn’t Andrew WK a fan of a very specific show? Wasn’t Weird Al as well? That show was called My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic wasn’t it?

I think I somehow, whatever god heard my plea, got moved into Equestria for a permanent vacation.

Oh God.

Oh well, walking over to a nice acoustic guitar, I take it off the shelf.

“That’ll be 50 bits for that, sir, if you want to buy that is.”

I sigh, and walk up the the clerk. I feel around for my debit card, but then realize that I’m a fucking pony and I wouldn’t sleep with my wallet anyways.

Besides, these bits probably aren’t American dollars. So, I’d want to enjoy the time I had with this guitar because I couldn’t afford it.

I lay my hoof on the fretboard and strum what should be an A Major chord. Instead, I get the single most dreaded sound a musician can hear. Complete and utter dissonance. “Aw, fuck,” I mumble under my breath.

The clerk seem to agree with me, he looks at me with a pained grin.

“Mercury, are you sure you know how to play a guitar.”

“Yes, I know how to play a guitar! In America, I was an amazing guitar player!” I retort.

I put my hoof on the fretboard again, then I realize something. Even though my hoof was still, well, a hoof, it was almost like I could feel my four fretting fingers laying on the fretboard.

Racking my brain for a song I’d knew I’d had to have memorized, as being a cover artist forces memorization on you. I remember the chord positions and start strumming out a mellow tune, a song that perfectly describes my roller-coaster feelings of the past couple of days.

I sang about Irene, how she’d always be in my dreams, chided her to stop doing harmful things such as gambling, and overall just wondering where she was. How she’d cope.

All this over a simple chord progression I knew my hooves could handle. It’s not like I’d start by whipping out One, especially not on an acoustic.

After I finish, I look up. The clerk is looking at me with the complete antithesis of what was on his face earlier. He’s in awe. His jaw is slacked open. It’s a bit creepy to be honest. Finally, he gets the courage to speak.

“What was that?” he inquires, clearly interested.

“Goodnight, Irene.” I respond,”you’ve never heard it?”

“I can tell ya buddy, I’ve never heard any song like that before in my life! You know what? For that performance of such a unique song, the guitar’s on me! This business is sinking anyways!” he exclaims.

Wondering how the owner of a music store hadn’t heard one of my personal favorite Blues songs, but out of money and not denying a free gift, I take the guitar.

“Say,” I ask the clerk right before I leave,”what’s the name of your business? This guitar is great!”

“It’s hoof-crafted. This business is known as Potbelly’s Music Emporium,” the clerk, presumably Potbelly, I mean, he was pretty heavy-set, says.

I thank him cordially before heading out, wondering what the heck just happened. Not knowing the Blues is very odd. With my new guitar in hand, I venture to unravel the mystery behind this place. But first, I’d need a radio.

Comments

[SethFilms]

this is good, but put more detail and make it more long like.

Keep it up my dude!

[Dashie04]

10225367
More detail, can do.

Also, how would you define ‘long like’? Just curious.