Lyrics for Art Snob Solutions as interpreted by constant

Art Snob Solutions Lyrics
What’s up, directors? Grab your knives!
It’s time to take all all of the lives
Of the people who cannot see
The somnolent genius of Tarkovsky

Come on authors, grab your guns!
It’s time to murder everyone
Who has never heard of Apollinaire
Send them all to hell, it’s only fair

Cast them all into the flames
If they don’t know any names
Of the principles of Arte Povera
Or are unfamiliar with le serpent mascara
That’s right, mascara snake!

Come on painters, alive or dead!
Give all the cretins a boot to the head
If they don’t extoll convincingly
Tempered Elan era Kandinsky

Throw them all into a well
If they cannot tell
An Arto Parv feast of repitition
From a Schoenberg 12 tone composition

Come on artists, the day is here!
And your mission is very clear
Put an end to the bourgeoisie
And death to everyone who’s never heard of me

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lithiumian
01-15-2006

Rated 0 
these are some of the weirdest lyrics ive ever seen
i mean... it looks like it says artists should kill everyone whos never heard of their idol
great song though
ive only heard of the band a few weeks ago but i love to sing their songs so much now

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lithiumian
01-15-2006

Rated 0 
these are some of the weirdest lyrics ive ever seen
i mean... it looks like it says artists should kill everyone whos never heard of their idol
great song though
ive only heard of the band a few weeks ago but i love to sing their songs so much now

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sifellt neytandi
01-18-2006

Rated 0 
...yeah, that's sort of the point. Way to go.

Anyway, really cool song. I suppose that it's a comment on the sort of hipster-type people who would like to see anybody who disagrees with them on the subject of what makes an artist/band/whatever "good" burned at the stake.

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mynameisntana
01-18-2006

Rated 0 
I think it's hilarious.

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mynameisntana
01-18-2006

Rated 0 
Also, not to be nitpicky, but it's bourgeoisie.

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tch
02-25-2006

Rated -1 
It's Tchaikovsky, not Tarkovsky. Unless there's some famous artist out there named Tarkovsky?

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1 Reply
verbes
03-08-2006

Rated +1 
Tarkovsky was a Russian director.

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aboutaprettysunset
03-13-2006

Rated 0 
I laugh everytime I hear this song.

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leiferikson
03-22-2006

Rated 0 
quote: It's Tchaikovsky, not Tarkovsky.
Try using (a) an encyclopedia or (b) common sense:
(1) You know Tchaikovsky.
(2) This is a song about Art Snobs, which you clearly are not.

But if you feel like correcting something, you might want to consider mentioning that it's Schoenberg, not Schoenburg.

Sorry, I could not resist. Not this time.

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heroinhotwater
03-29-2006

Rated 0 
"It's Tchaikovsky, not Tarkovsky. Unless there's some famous artist out there named Tarkovsky?" and it's funny because you can't tell if they're being serious. If so lol @ u!

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leiferikson
04-06-2006

Rated 0 
Good point. It's interesting that they have the same lyrics as above on their website, including the wrong spelling of "bourgoussie". Even more interesting: When you google for "Arto Parv", all you'll find are websites with lyrics to this song, however, he's definitely singing "Arto Parv" and not the similar name of that estonian composer to whom the lyrics probably refer.

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imaginaryordinary
04-18-2006

Rated 0 
ok who wants to feel like a total pretentious bitch? I do! I believe that what Of Montreal was trying to say instead of Arto Parv was Arvo Part, a most excellent estonian composer. I really don't know what "a feast of repetition" was referring to, but it made me think of one of his peices, Fur Elana, which repeats the same minimalist composition 3 times in different octaves. Quite a breathtaking peice if you ever get a chance to listen to it. I don't know that much about 12 tone compositions, I just know it is this extremley formulaic, very hard, terrible form of music that spawned from the 20th century mentality of "we've done everything else, we might as well do this..." mentality. All I know is that you have to play a bunch of random notes and then the inverson of those notes in a minor fifth or something like that...and then do it again with a third i think, but i dont really know much about that. If you know any of the other allusions of this song, please post, I don't want to be the only art snob!

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hippomaiden
04-18-2006

Rated 0 
this is a fantastic song. i like sifellt neytandi's translation.

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Dr Panda 97
05-20-2006

Rated 0 
I'm pretty proud of myself for knowing both Tarkovsky and Kandinsky.

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elephant_seventh
06-21-2006

Rated 0 
leiferikson- I thought the exact same thing. And it made me laugh.

I knew some of these, but that didn't make me feel any better about myself. Because... they're being sarcastic? I think they're saying how it's not really that important.

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the lion said
06-24-2006

Rated 0 
i think in the lyrics to this song they're actually meaning to be sarcastic about it and poking fun at people who get mad at other people for not knowing someone who they think so highly of.

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sieraM
06-25-2006

Rated 0 
first of all tchaikovsky and tarkovsky are too totally different people

tchaikovsky (pyotr ilyich) was a russian composer & tarkovsky (andrei) was a russian director hence the 'whats up director's grab your knifes' verse. why would of montreal put a composer in a verse about directors?


apollinaire ( guillaume) was a famous french writer

arte povera (1962-72) was a term created by an art critic named germano celant. it delt with examining 14 key artists whose goals were to come up with a whole new trend of art (something like that, why should i know? i'm only 15!)

shoenberg is the correct spelling. and it's something about arranging the 12 notes in the chromatic scale (12-tone row) so it becomes the basis of his melodies, harmonies, comp, etc.

le serepent mascara... okay not too familiar with that :(


bourgeoisie, french for the wealthy..(?)

shooties!

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sieraM
06-25-2006

Rated 0 
i forgotthe 'c' in schoenberg!

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Svrakata
06-26-2006

Rated 0 
http://klp.pl/admin-malarstwo/images/grafiki/4231.jpg - Tempered Elan by Kandinsky

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jawamachines
07-03-2006

Rated 0 
i think it's kind of ironic that this song is about how pointlessly pretentious art snobs are, yet here we all are being pretentious art snobs more-or-less bragging about which artists in the song we already knew beforehand or can correctly spell or reference.

that said, i'm the same way and found myself bragging (in my head) about how i knew all of them except that damn serpent mascara... :/ oh well, i guess that's of montreal's target audience... intelligent people.

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catastrophysician
07-25-2006

Rated 0 
i'm going to go see of montreal this saturday
and i honestly truly seriously absolutely


CANNOT WAIT


what a beautiful thing it will be :]

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catastrophysician
07-25-2006

Rated 0 
oh, and for the record, correcting the spellings of the lyrics isn't making you a better person or helping you get laid. in fact, all you're doing is reinforcing the general belief that art snobs are a bunch of pretentious know-it-alls who have nothing better to do but chortle at others and correct their spelling, as if that's in any way relevant or proves you're a bigger fan.

so eat it.

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eristofoles
09-30-2006

Rated 0 
I'm pretty sure "le serpent mascara" is just a jest at the way art-y types like to say things in French (or Italian, German, etc.) when there is a perfectly accurate equivalent term in English. I assume that line which follows: "that's right, mascara snake!".
Just my 2c.

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nightingale!sing
10-05-2006

Rated 0 
i like how everyone is getting really serious about this, when it's pretty apparent to me that this is satirical.

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Frunobulax19
01-09-2007

Rated +1 
I joined this site just for this one thing:
For people who pride themselves so highly on knowing about songs and Kandinsky, I am shcoked that ALL OF YOU were mystified by the mascara snake (or properly, Mascara Snake). This is an obvious reference, copied VERBATIM, to Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band member The Mascara Snake (Vliet's cousin from the Trout Mask Replica band). It took over 10 months for this easy as hell reference to finally be explained to supposed art lovers here. Jeez....

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