Something a little different for the second installment of the Hectic City mixtapes. I guess we should be flattered that we’ve been given the String Quartet Tribute treatment – after all, many artists of our stature have had this unusual form of honour bestowed upon them, so we must feel safe in their company, if a little bemused.

Unfortunately, as yet we’ve been unable to get hold of a full copy of the album, despite repeated requests, but as the next best thing, we’ve managed to record several excerpts played on recent BBC Radio broadcasts. These bootleg recordings have been edited together and we now serve them up to you as Hectic City mixtape No.2.

Direct download: MP3 or FLAC

First up, thanks for the feedback and suggestions to the first Hectic City Mixtape – got it fixed up now, although quite bugged to find I can only attach one piece of audio per post to the RSS2 feed – if anyone knows a way round this, I’d be eternally grateful if you’d let me know (even though I’ve not had time to do a dig around yet) – I’d really not have to post each slice of future episodes in a separate post – there are a couple of ideas for future HCs that would rely on that to function correctly, so here’s hoping there’s a way round it.

Anyway, in other K-related podcast news, Radio Clash have posted the second part of the wine fuelled chat we had during the Web 2.0 Summit last month – this time we deviate from the music to talk trannys, topography and transport, and there’s also an interview with A&D from Bootie – you can find it here. Also don’t forget I’m DJing for Radio Clash’s occasional club tomorrow night in London, and it’s free! Details are here.

Secondly, we’ve also released our first contribution to the podcasts over at A Swarm Of Angels (don’t know what ASOA is? read this first) – A departure for us, as not only does it contain all Creative Commons licenced tracks, but the intention is rather different – hence we’re referring to the mixes as “Moodcasts”. The idea is to slowly warm to the simultaneous development of the scripts, so rather than look for immediate, dominant sound, we’ve initially chosen tracks that are more gently suggestive, and will develop the themes and ideas over the series in tandem with received feedback and the work going on in other areas of the project. Check the initial K-cast for the first of the two scripts, “Glitch”, here.

 

Okay, well, let’s get away from the heavy duty stuff for a bit, and get back to the music, and finally (well, for me anyway) I’m proud to announce the first Hectic City mixtape! Yay!

(FX: Champagne bottle smashing against server. Several people cheering half-heartedly.)

Fingers crossed, this will be a regular event. This time there’s a DJ Mix from earlier in the year – Not a full mash-up mix, although there’s a couple in there, but some good tunes all round, I think.

Direct download: MP3 or FLAC

Well, not quite, despite Music Thing‘s inventive paraphrasing, but as the Gowers Review slowly seeps into reality (and I mean slowly… still no sign of the full report, but it can’t be long now), the word is good, not only for anti-copyright-extension activists, but also for the remix and mash-up communities.

The Times summarises:

“The report suggests that exemptions to copyright law should be allowed for “transformative works”. This would permit the use of copyright material in new and creative ways, so long as it did not detract from the value of that material or offend artistic integrity. It calls on the EU to amend the law to allow for that exception. It would allow “rappers” and other creators to rework old material.”

Gotta love those “rappers”, eh?

However, as one would expect, there is already a whiff of caution in the air. Laurence Lessig pops up in the Financial Times to warn on the copyright term recommendations:

“There is not much doubt about what it will say on this proposal. There is much more doubt about whether the government will follow the report’s sensible advice.”

Coming into an election year, this is a serious likelihood. And, especially if there is a change in power, it is also entirely possible that the more radical recommendations of the report, such as the above “transformative works” exemptions, could quietly slip off the agenda completely.

Still, as openDemocracy points out:

“…until this point, there has been no effective, accessible forum for debating IP in the UK – or indeed anywhere. “The sense that democratic dialogue is failing on this topic is a serious one”, write Kay Withers and William Davies of the Institute for Public Policy Research in their recent paper Public Innovation, concluding a nine-month research project into the UK’s current intellectual-property framework. Gowers, it seems, opened the doors to such a dialogue. How his review is interpreted by government later this week will be crucial.”

And equally crucial will be the continuing strength of the effort to keep these doors open, and the debate alive and kicking until these recommendations become law.

Yet even if you’re not interested in participating in the intellectual debate, all you have to do is lead by example, and keep mixing…

Well, at least people seem to be talk-talking… Following on from EMI Vice-Chairman David Munns comments during our debate at the Web 2.0 Summit (in which he suggested that availability of remixable content, alongside a simpler sample-clearence system could be possibilities), now Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr, during an interview within Second Life suggests the same thing:

“It’s our hope we can find a way to generally license much or all of our content for users to adapt in any way they see fit.”

Yet again, the emphasis is, as with David’s comments, always on “hope” – as bootlegger Andy Churchill commented today on the Get Your Bootleg On Forum, “I’ll believe it when I see it”.

This exactly mirrored my thoughts stepping down from the stage following my Web 2.0 Summit debate. The labels, naturally, are always looking for new ways to monetize their content – However, their admittance that this is something they are now investigating (or at least considering investigating) pushes things one step further towards reality. The issue now lies with the next major hurdle, one touched on by David Munns during our discussion, which is the wishes of the rights owners and actual artists.

Okay, sure there are going to be artists that will not allow any manipulation of their work, regardless of the financial benefits, but this is no reason to shoot the idea down in flames – I’m wagering that there are plenty who do, too – particularly ones that are looking to revitalise their (maybe long deleted) catalogue. Recent major-label compilation series, such as Universal’s “The Trip” have shown again that there is considerable interest in unearthing hidden catalogue jewels, so why not develop this further?

Furthermore, many artists (such as Prince) have already made their content available in a similar format; that of Sample CDs – raw limited-license-on-purchase material for studio musicians. Although Sample CD content is expensive, there’s usually a considerable amount of material on each disc, so the cost per sample isn’t that huge. Translate that to a digital distribution medium, and maybe there’s something to start with, no?

Still, if the heads of the majors are realising this, one hopes that there is internal research going on to see how feasible this is, and, I think, for once, rather than allowing a third-party company to take the reigns, I’ll bet that they’ll be wanting to administer this online themselves.

Another rumour posted suggests that Universal Music are doing exactly this at the moment, costing up the internal work involved in making such a service available. What form this will take is unclear at this time, of course, but it’s an interesting rumour.

It’s been a long held opinion of mine that the majors are wasting an opportunity in not developing their content in this way (“no shit, Eric?”). The only time they dip into this area is when looking for ways to promote new artists, usually in the form of remix competitions, and always seemingly very half-heartedly.

EMI’s remix competition for Lily Allen’s “LDN” is a good example of this. The competition stated that mixes would be put on Lily’s website for fans to hear, but so far, over a month after the closing date for the competition, nothing has appeared. Maybe the sole prize incentive of a single pair of Lily-designed Nike sneakers failed to galvanize the remixing public…

…Which is more than half the problem. Seeing the only benefit of making this content available as a lure to get names on a mailing list is not only narrow-minded, but is also interpreted as patronising by the very people who would like to remix the music – the label’s intentions are rather transparent, and the competition results will suffer accordingly. Guys, you’re pitching at the wrong audience!

Allowing song parts to be made available for a limited time, and a community to develop around these mixes has already been successfully achieved by sites such as Acid Planet, which had already been established by Sonic Foundry as a remix community for their “Acid” software prior to the company’s purchase by Sony. Unfortunately, the content is, again, always made available as part of a competition.

However, it could be argued that some Acid Planet content (which has always been DRM free, and always in uncompressed wav format, so as best to utilise the “acidizing” ability of the software) has benefited certain artists greatly once the content has been utilised outside the Acid Planet site.

Remix parts (including acapella vocals) for, amongst others, Madonna’s “Ray Of Light”, New Order’s “Crystal” and The Chemical Brothers’ “Galvanise” all first appeared on the site, and have since gone on to form part of the essential toolkit of any wannabe mash-up artist and thus have been utilised many, many times, resulting in some classic mixes, such as Go Home Production’s “Ray Of Gob”, which was even blessed with a semi-legitimate (i.e. “blind-eye”) vinyl release.

None of this material’s release and subsequent online trading seems to have hurt the artists in question at all. If anything, the range of adaptions of Madonna’s vocals (in a similar way to previous use of Missy Elliott and Eminem) has given her a considerable cache of underground cool that would be impossible to generate in any other way. And it cost virtually nothing.

So the artists (and therefore, labels) are already benefiting from free distribution of their remixable content, even if it isn’t within the intended parameters. Therefore it’s no surprise to the remix community to see that the heads of labels are finally acknowledging that there is a market for such content, even if, again not surprisingly, they’re unsure as yet how it can be best utilised (i.e. monetized). But it will be a very interesting situation to see develop.

Is this the point where Mash-Ups go public? Who knows, but let’s not hold our breaths, eh?

 

As mentioned in a previous post, Tim (aka Instamatic, aka DJ No No) from Radio Clash and I conducted an interview following my session at the Web 2.0 Summit – Pleased to say that it’s now up on his site as part of Radio Clash episode 99 (K Bit starts 41m in, but take time to listen to the whole show if you can!).

We cover the usual range of bootlegging topics, and if we sound somewhat relaxed, it’s wholly due to the amount of wine we’d consumed at the Summit closing reception prior to the interview (although not as much as some folks…)! However, the relaxed situ did mean that there was a fair bit of talk about what may be happening next in K-Land too, so if you want the gen, head over and have a listen.

(Thanks as always to Tim for his exemplary podcasting and editing skills).

Oh and sorry about the picture. Applications for the (suddenly now vacant) post of Kleptones stylist welcome.

I feel numb, burn with a weak heart
Guess I must be having fun,
The less we say about it the better
Make it up as we go along…

I spend Friday chilling gettly, first downtown, and then over in Berkeley having lunch and continuing a chat from the CC Salon with the forever entertaining and thoughtful Victor Stone, before heading off to the aforementioned summit.

Behold the Great Mashup Meal of 2006.

Yes, A&D again excel themselves by bringing together more transatlantic mashup artists and remixers in one room than you can shake a dodgy copy of Acid at. I’m scared to list everyone in case I miss anyone out but (deep breath) we got A & D, Earworm, Party Ben, Dada, Phil & Dog, Radio Clash Tim (in his Instamatic guise), Ian Fondue, Supercollider, Juxtaposeur and The Overhope Organisation!

Add a few honarary guests and the scene was set for large amounts of beer and seafood to vanish surprisingly quickly. For me, a particularly great time, as I’d not met many of the attendees before, even the UK ones (I know the place is small, but we don’t all know each other, k?).

So after running up a pretty impressive bill, most of the assembled head over to the Rickshaw Stop for more beer and some of that ol’ time electro dance music until the early hours. This time, there’s nothing to get up for the next morning, so I take full advantage. A lovely feeling.

Saturday dawns gently, and with the day to myself, I head up to Golden Gate Park, stopping off on Haight for some breakfast supplies alongside a couple of free papers from Amoeba Records, thus unintentionally completing the Amoeba triangle (having visited both the LA branch the week before, and the Berkeley one the day before).

I could hear the records crying out to me. Honest I could.

Fortified, sanctified and feeling chock full of chilled Haight shopping vibes, it’s finally time for the big one. The unstoppable. The insurmountable. Yup. It’s Bootie SF.

Surveying the DNA Lounge as it gets set up and covered in hundreds of skull & crossbones logos makes me a little more nervous than LA, so I watch the UK contingent make themselves at home by filling their room with signs and posters and firing off messages to GYBO from one of the many Linux terminals that dot the club. Truly a home from home in more ways than one. Soon the doors are open, and the place is filling fast. Both rooms are starting to jump, with Dada and then Instamatic doing the honours in one room, and the Bastard UK collective chopping and changing in the other. It’s truly a sight to see, as the dancefloor grows and the crowd start cheering each section of a tune as it comes in. In the meantime people are stretching their heads in the Bastard room to a great drum’n’bass mix of “Uptown Top Ranking”.

Soon it’s time for Smash Up Derby (in their own words, “The world’s only Mashup Rock’n’Roll Band”) to get their groove on. Adrian and Trixxie circle the stage draped in union jack capes, pushing the band through a set of UK themed mashes. It’s pretty fuckin’ impressive, and the crowd, well familiar with this brand of insanity, obviously think so too. I get my tech together while the stage is filled with a truly deranged pirate hat fashion show, and then it’s blue touch paper time again…

Feet on the ground, head in the sky,
It’s okay, I know nothing’s wrong… Nothing’s wrong.

This was an awesomely fun set – not as tight as the one in LA, but in terms of pure enjoyment, as good as it gets, even when I freaked out my little Faderfox mixer, leaving a verse and a chorus hanging in mid-air almost completely acapella as I frantically tried to figure out what had gone wrong. The crowd just sang along, Party Ben stared at my frantic tweakings thinking it was part of the act, and Adrian later accused me good-naturedly of teasing his crowd. Definitely the mark of a good set when even the fuck-ups work! I’m that pleased, I finish the set with “War Of Confusion”, gleefully blending Dubya’s closing comments on the track with Cypress Hill’s “Insane In The Brain” acapella…

So everyone decamps to (After-)Party Ben’s to do the traditional afterclub business until the end of the night. Well, almost. I manage to wring the last few drops of goodness out of my trip stopping off at A & D’s for one last hurrah, before finally admitting that we’d sucked every last bit of fun out of the town and it was definitely time to crash. I float back through town, zig-zagging blocks in the early morning sun, pause in the hotel lobby to shame-facedly grab some muffins and coffee from the breakfast buffet while my fellow guests try not to stare, then fall in to my room and a deep, long sleep.

There’s not time to do much else the next day before the flight but take a quick wander through Chinatown and a browse in City Lights Bookstore, before it’s time to bid farewell to California, thank it profusely for the good times and ready myself for a good few hours of insomnia on the flight home.

Er.. which is where we came in, isn’t it? Well, the jetlag’s gone, and I’m yawning and ready for bed.

Time for one last huge thank you to everyone who made the trip such a memorable one (esp. John Battelle, A & D, Party Ben, Tim BC & Victor Stone), and apologies to everyone Stateside that I didn’t get to make it to this time. It won’t be too long before the next one, I promise!

And who the hell was it that asked me to write this trip up, anyway? I forget…

Night all.

Home is where I want to be,
But I guess I’m already there.

I wake up and wonder, what was the place, what was the name?
We wanna wait, but here we go again…

Yeah. That’s right. I had to stay sober. Oops.

My alarm finally pokes through the low-lying clouds of sleep and I wake up late on Thursday morning with a crunching hangover, bleary eyes and an impending sense of “Oh Shit”. It takes a long shower and several swift doses of Berocca / Paracetamol cocktail before I’m feeling better, then it’s off to grab a breakfast croissant and several strong coffees, before heading down to the Speaker’s Lounge at the summit…

It’s always showtime, here at the edge of the stage…

The green room is calm as I meet up with David Munns, Vice-Chairman of EMI, who has taken over the role of “the suit” in the discussion from Chairman Eric Nicoli. David is suffering from a cold, so I feel we’re matched in the foggy-head stakes. We chat briefly before John Battelle shows up to talk us through the intro. In no time we’re off to face the crowd, and the discussion begins. I’m going to save my thoughts on that for another post, but until the official podcast arrives, if you’re curious you can check out a recording of the discussion on EMI’s site (thanks to Adam Grossberg from EMI for the recording and for making it available so quick), or read a great summary at Lawgarithms.

For now, I’ll say now that it was a very enjoyable discussion, and although I thought John did far more of the interrogation than myself, I really enjoyed his questions! Nice one, John, and thank you for inviting me.

Why, why, why, why start it over?
Nothing is lost, everything’s free
I don’t care how impossible it seems…

So, the day’s duty completed, nothing remained but to enjoy the closing reception and indulge in a few more rounds of highly-energised chats. By the end of the reception, I’m starting to wish that there were several more days to go, but so it goes. A very enjoyable experience all round, and a quick round of hello’s to everyone that stopped to chat during the summit – It was great to meet you all.

Still, there’s always more to look forward to, so after stopping off for a quick chat to Tim for a future Radio Clash (good luck with editing that one, Tim – but please make sure you *do* edit it, okay? hehe…) we have an end of night drink and ponder over the next night, which brings a summit of a wholly different kind…

…and nothing is better than this, is it?

Somebody is waiting in the hallway
Somebody is falling down the stairs

Head buzzing full of ideas, I move off for a quick lunch in my room. Back out into the conference for the afternoon and the whole thing has accelerated into overdrive. There’s people everywhere – talking on phones, talking on headsets, talking to others, talking to themselves and the hubub is backed up by the sound of a thousand laptops tip-tapping down the echoing corridors, aided, no doubt, by the hotel’s decision to charge $17 a day for internet access in the rooms. Hmf. Naturally, the W2 Summit (I’m going to start using that term, as they have officially changed the name, so gotta get used to it) have got AOL to shill for wireless access for the main areas, but the cost of room-net has pushed many cost-conscious attendees into every available corridor and chair to do their online work. (Expense account? Moi?)

If this were a club, you’d say it was peaking right now. This is the corporate equivalent of hands-in-the-air time. Familiar faces and nametags move here and there. Unfamiliar faces with big ideas eye the traffic with unconcealed intent. The temptation to eavesdrop is considerable. I resist, and pop into the launchpad session to see some new companies demo their wares and ideas briefly before cleaning up and heading off into the San Franciscan night, grabbing a freshly arrived Tim from Radio Clash on the way to do something exceptionally English – Go see The Pet Shop Boys!

Snap into position, Bounce till you ache…

And, as always, they don’t disappoint. Backed up with two dancers and three singers, their show is a masterpiece of non-bandsmanship, with a beautifully designed stageset that is continually manipulated by a couple of boilersuit clad stagehands into a variety of different positions, acting as both stage platforms and frames for the dancers and surfaces for video projections. It’s a fine set, carefully balancing new tunes with old show-stoppers. Mash and mix fans, it should be noted, would be delighted with their conceptual arrangement skills, which saw the two “spell-the word-out” tunes (“Minimal” and “Shopping”) blending into one another, and a fine segue between “Se A Vida Es” and “Domino Dancing”. Although they did miss a trick as Tim pointed out the similarity between “The Sodom And Gomorrah Show” and “Yesterday When I Was Mad” (sadly not in the set). The crowd get highly emotional, with tons of hugging and kissing inbetween the dancing. It’s great to feel such a warm vibe, especially in a huge place.

Suitably enlivened, we bounce out of the auditorium and head down to Trannyshack at The Stud, where Adrian from Bootie is performing in a cast of hundreds (well, probably not, but it felt like it!) drag tribute to, ahem, the majesty of Freddie Mercury and Queen. Highly appropriate really, dontchathink?

It’s another wonderful show, taking in many lesser known Queen tracks (including personal favourites “Spread Your Wings” and “Let Me Entertain You”) with the obligatory classics. These gals certainly know how to make the most out of the tiny stage with a combination of excellent costumes, demented acting and endless bravado, and the packed club cheers them on every step of the way.

However the freshly-arrived Tim is not looking so fresh any more, and goes off to deal with his jetlag, With me, more than half-cut, following suit soon after. I make a pit stop on the way back for a tub of bedtime ice-cream (Chocolate Fudge Brownie) at the 7-11, and am charmed by the guy on the till, who, even at this late hour, asks me if I want a spoon. Bless him.

Makin’ flippy floppy, tryin to do my best…

Wednesday sees the conference, sorry, summit keeping the energy levels up, although I see less of the action, as I’m doing a little prep for my evening’s appearence at the Creative Commons Salon at Shine. Not wanting to play the higher energy Bootie set in an early-evening bar setting, I take a few chances and buff up some more downtempo works-in-progress, alongside a few, hopefully more familiar tunes.

The Salon has a wonderfully friendly, relaxed vibe, and I get to try out a few experiments in between checking out people’s ideas, particularly the very impressive Splice – an online audio remix and mashup tool. Naturally an online flash sequencer is going to have some limitations, but these guys have done what I think is the best job yet of taking the essential elements and making them very easy to use. Combine that with a growing sample base and community, and there’s a lot of fun to be had.

Sadly there’s never enough time to chat, but I’m delighted to finally make the aquaintances of both TradeMark from The Evolution Control Committee, and Victor Stone (creator of fine music as fourstones.net, and also the backbone of CCMixter) amongst others. Frenzied conversation and trading of numbers results, before I remind myself I have to try to get an early night before my own little piece of the Web 2 Summit the next day.

Unfortunately the night is still young, and the city very inviting, so D from Bootie zooms me off to meet up with Tim again, who is across town checking out the wonderfully jovial and occasionally outspoken DJ Jay-R. Everyone is in great spirits and many beers are sunk, but as I quaff, quaff again and quaff some more, I have an unsettling feeling calling from deep in my brain of something that I’d forgotten to do…

Bring me a doctor, I have a hole in my head…

Well we know where we’re goin’
but we don’t know where we’ve been.
And we know what we’re knowing’
but we can’t say what we’ve seen.
And we’re not little children
and we know what we want.
And the future is certain
give us time to work it out.

And yes, it’s a different world. Not my usual one, as you would expect, but again, surprisingly easy to slide into, especially with such a fine program of panels, workshops and discussions, and more interesting breakfast and lunch discussions than you can shake a 4GB memory stick at.

The vibe is positively relaxed during the first morning, with many attendees catching up on aquaintances, sipping coffee and surreptuously checking out other people’s nametags, giving me a chance to check out a great panel on the Future (i.e post-YouTube) Of Video. Nice to see that the assembled bods attacked the copyright issue first-off, but the mentality still seems to follow the “if it’s successful, we’re sure something will be sorted out” line. Not sure where this leaves the 14-year-old with the copyright infringing animation soundtrack though.

The online video zone seems to be right on the edge of a turf-war, as competing teams start battling for good niches following the GooTube announcement. For me, naturally, JumpCut has the edge on the first batch, but there seems to be a fair amount of quality round two brainwaves that should ensure this will be the most innovative area of online media for a good while to come.

This slice of brainfood is immediately followed by the very charming Don Tapscott’s workshop on “The Net Generation”, which does a fine job of summarizing and enlarging on the coming generations (Tapscott’s def is roughly 14-29, the “Net Generation”) attitude towards the net. For me, this generation gap is neatly defined by the pro / anti MySpace line. So many first-gen webheads don’t get, or just plain don’t like MySpace, for whatever reasons – clunky back-end, geek snobbery etc… whereas many kids use it for almost exactly the same reasons. It wasn’t designed specifically for geeks or snobs, although it’s wonderful to see so many kids getting their first taste of hacking and coding through customising their pages. Whodathought?

This last point is something that is brought home in Tapscott’s research (slides here – definitely worth a look), in which he finds that 52% of N-Geners polled say they want to be able to customise the products that they consume and want to be able to develop relationships with suppliers in the same manner. Some large corps are already taking advantage of this more marketable side of remix culture, but it’s reassuring to see that the peeps polled clearly state that this freedom of choice is one of the most influencial factors on many of their online decisions, purchasing and otherwise. The remix ethos is now not only a buzz factor, it’s actually become ingrained in the decision-making process. “Does it come in Red?” has now been replaced with “How can I personalise it?”, “What are my options?”- In effect, “How can I remix it?”

Also great to hear Tapscott briefly echo one of my own thoughts about music disctribution during the Q & A. I always thought (with the benefit of just a little hindsight, natch) that it was a great shame that the connection speeds available during the time of the Napster Wars didn’t allow for easier direct streaming of good quality media (for a small subscription) – for me this would have been the smartest major-label response to their peer-to-peer problems at the time. All content, always available, all the time. Incorporate intelligent playlisting, a last.fm style community base and a Pandora-style recommendation system and no-one would ever need to illigally download the same content! (unless, ahem, say, they wanted to remix it?, ahem. But more on that one later…)

Okay, so you’d still want to get it to play on your iPod, or in your car, but once the shackles come off mobile devices (and they *will*, very soon), you’ll be able to stream content to any decent device. So why bother with owning the actual file?

As David Bowie quipped in 2002, “music will soon become like running water”. Turn the tap on. Have a drink. Have another one. No need to keep big buckets of the stuff around, just pay your water charges.

Okay, sure this doesn’t cover *all* the content (speaking as someone who only went on Napster in the first place to find the Beach Boys “Smile” sessions) but it’s a large chunk of it, and, lets face it, as time goes on, more and more music is being made available to stream for free from artists sites anyway (particularly savvy indie ones), so why use it just as an incentive to purchase DRM-ed downloads? Arse about face or what?

Unfortunately, now that most developed nations have deleveloped decent high-speed networks, the labels have already insisted on, invested in and converted to an online shop system, which is far easier for them to adapt to, as it mirrors the standard “record shop”. However, more and more industry people keep calling for the subscription model to be adopted as time goes on, so there’s some hope. Just please don’t call it a levy. Or a “Music Tax”.

(Jetlag interruption… fingers slipping off keys, although that might be the duty-free… “EK in the USA” continues right after this…. zzz)

Would you like to come along, you can help me sing this song
and it’s all right, baby, it’s all right.
They can tell you what to do, but they’ll make a fool of you…