Bigger Than Jesus
So you’ve formed a band, hey ?
A bunch of like-musicians have joined-forced with each other.
Time to chase that fame
And choose a name
For all of your future fans to discover –
One that sticks in the mind okay,
Yet’s easy to say,
And you won’t be ashamed to tell it your mother.
We’ve all of us kept lists as kids,
Whenever we heard a future name
In a turn-of-phrase or a parlour game.
Well, now it’s time to make your bids,
Set all those quirky titles free –
They may just be your new identity,
For all the times you joked with a whoop
“Now that’s the name of my future group !”
Don’t call yourselves after one of your members,
For therein lies an ego –
I guarantee, of all career-enders,
This is the bitterest blow.
The public assume the namee is the main-man,
Until the members think the same –
And what was a band when you began
Becomes a bunch of sidemen to the Name.
And girls, this doesn’t just apply to the dudes –
So insist you’re a we and an us in interviews.
Now, if it contains three words or four,
It may be a mouthful,
Pretentious bull,
And more manifesto than proper noun –
But it may be distinct and int’resting,
With a definite ring like nothing around.
If so, resist the urge to water it down.
For ev’ry word you unpick from your thread
Is a little less grand and a little more bland,
As if to admit you couldn’t live-up to its stead.
Till you’re just one syllable,
Easily killable,
By keeping-on cutting till there’s nothing to be said.
Yet make sure your moniker sounds like your music –
Don’t play metal in the name of a jazz quartet.
But whatever public-label you pick,
You gotta make it stick
By showing no regret.
Whatever you choose, however you want,
Inscribe it with pride in a well-drawn font.
Before you can even play a note, your brand
Is the first that the world will hear of your band.
It’s just as vital as your onstage-looks,
As your lyrics and your hooks and your tattooed breasts.
Imagine it competing with your rockstar brothers
On your album covers and t-shirt chests,
And your tabloid headlines of drunken arrests.
Will the kids double-take when they see it
From Vietnam to Budapest ?
Inhabit your name – believe it and be it,
It’s what make your music diff’rent from the rest.
Rhyming Couplets 