Line #106 Music/TheBlackRider


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/3444ca69dcaec62cf67501c8b61a1520.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350: ''Come on along with the Black Rider. We'll have a gay old time!'']]
3
4	''The Black Rider'' is the twelfth studio album by Music/TomWaits. Released in 1993 through Creator/IslandRecords, it is based on the stage play/musical "The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets", written by Creator/WilliamSBurroughs in 1990 and directed by Robert Wilson for the Thalia Theater in UsefulNotes/{{Hamburg}}. For this Waits wrote the lyrics and music.
5
6	The play is an adaptation of the "folk tale" ''Der Freischütz'' from the 1810 German anthology ''Das Gespensterbuch'' ("The Book of Spectres") by August Apel and Friedrich Laun, which was translated into English by Thomas de Quincey in 1823 under the title ''The Fatal Marksman''. Two years before that, in 1821, it was already adapted into the opera ''[[Theatre/DerFreischutz Der Freischütz]]'' by Carl Maria von Weber and Friedrich Kind with changed names and a [[AdaptationalAlternateEnding happy ending]].
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8	''The Black Rider'', which sticks closer to the 1810 story, tells how a file clerk, Wilhelm (Max in the opera), wants to marry Kätchen (Agathe in the opera), the daughter of a forester. In order to gain her hand in marriage he must prove that he is a good hunter and marksman, which he isn't. To improve his talents he strikes a DealWithTheDevil, Pegleg, who offers him magic bullets that never miss their target. At first everything goes smooth. Wilhelm impresses his soon to be father-in-law and the marriage goes on as planned. However, on the wedding day Wilhelm accidentally shoots his wife dead. He goes insane and the Pegleg carries him and his soul off to hell. People familiar with Creator/WilliamSBurroughs' own lifestory will notice the parallel with his own accidental shooting of his wife in a drunken attempt to go WilliamTelling with her.
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10	The 1993 album is not a CultSoundtrack in the sense that the music from the play is performed with different arrangements.
11
12	Waits would later collaborate with Wilson again on the plays "Alice" (1992, another Thalia Theater production) and "Woyzeck" (2000), released as ''Music/{{Alice\|TomWaitsAlbum}}'' (2002) and ''Music/BloodMoney'' (2002).
13
14	!! Tracklist
15	# "Lucky Day (Overture)" (2:27)
16	# "The Black Rider" (3:21)
17	# "November" (2:53)
18	# "Just the Right Bullets" (3:35)
19	# "Black Box Theme" (2:42)
20	# "T' Ain't No Sin" (2:25)
21	# "Flash Pan Hunter/Intro" (1:10)
22	# "That's the Way" (1:07)
23	# "The Briar and the Rose" (3:50)
24	# "Russian Dance" (3:12)
25	# "Gospel Train/Orchestra" (2:33)
26	# "I'll Shoot the Moon" (3:51)
27	# "Flash Pan Hunter" (3:10)
28	# "Crossroads" (2:43)
29	# "Gospel Train" (4:43)
30	# "Interlude" (0:18)
31	# "Oily Night" (4:23)
32	# "Lucky Day" (3:42)
33	# "The Last Rose of Summer" (2:07)
34	# "Carnival" (1:15)
35
36	!! ''It ain't no sin to take off your skin and trope around in your bones''
37	* AtTheCrossroads: The deal with the devil is settled at the crossroads, as sang in the song "Crossroads".
38	--> And that's where old George found himself out there at the crossroads
39	--> Moulding the devil's bullets
40	* AudienceParticipation: Before the play starts, the Igor of the Announcer steps down from the stage, polishing the rails, personally greeting random guests etc., hoping a Website/TVTropes fan is present.
41	* BloodLust: "The Black Rider":
42	-->I'll drink your blood like wine
43	* BrainInAJar: "Lucky Day Overture" describes Hitler's brain in a jar on display.
44	* BrokenRecord: "Oily Night" repeats the title over and over again.
45	* CarefulWithThatAxe: "Lucky Day Overture", in which Waits screams into a megaphone, and "Flash Pan Hunter", where he moans and bellows halfway the end of the song.
46	* CirclingVultures: "I'll Shoot The Moon":
47	-->A vulture circles over your head for you baby
48	* CircusOfFear: The album also starts off with Waits summoning people to come and watch all the bizarre things in his sideshow circus.
49	* ComeToGawk: "Lucky Day Overture" and "The Black Rider" have a ring master trying to bring in people to come and watch the freakshow.
50	* CountingToThree: "Just The Right Bullets", where the musicians can be heard counting off to three and four.
51	* CreepyCircusMusic: A lot of music on the album has calliope-organ music, including an old carnival tune "sung" by Creator/WilliamSBurroughs.
52	* CreepyCrows: "Flash Pan Hunter/Intro" is a gloomy tune played with cawing crows in the background.
53	* CreepyMonotone: Creator/WilliamSBurroughs's delivery of "It Ain't No Sin" and "Oily Night", sang with a very deep voice.
54	* DealWithTheDevil: Wilhelm makes a deal with the devil in exchange for sharp shooting talent.
55	* DemBones: "The Black Rider" and "It Ain't No Sin":
56	-->When it gets too hot for comfort\
57	And you can't get an ice cream cone\
58	It ain't no sin to take off your skin\
59	And dance around in your bones
60	* DrugsAreBad: "Crossroads":
61	-->Someway he got into the magic bullets and that leads straight to the Devil's work\
62	Just like marijuana leads to heroin
63	* EvilSoundsDeep: "Oily Night" has a very deep and frightening voice repeat the title over and over again, while the music around him slowly but surely goes berserk. In the context of the play it is meant to be music for a Satanic ritual.
64	* EvilSoundsRaspy: See EvilSoundsDeep.
65	* FlowerMotifs: The briar and the rose symbolizes Wilhelm's realization that he can't marry Käthchen (the rose) without help from Pegleg (the briar). Then, in one of Pegleg's many {{Villain Song}}s, "Flash Pan Hunter", he gloats over his impending victory with the line "The briar is strangling the rose back down." And when [[spoiler:Käthchen]] dies, what's the song? "The Last Rose of Summer Is Gone".
66	-->Picked the rose one early morn\
67	Pricked my finger on a thorn\
68	They'd grown so close, their winding wove\
69	The Briar and the Rose
70	* TheFreakshow: "Lucky Day Overture" describes several freak show artists with deformities. Tom plays a circus promoter promising "human oddities" such as a three headed baby, [[BrainInAJar Hitler's brain]], the human pincushion, a seal boy with flippers for arms, the man born without a body, and more!
71	* GoodParents: "Lucky Day":
72	-->Now when I was a boy\
73	My daddy sat me on his knee\
74	And he told me\
75	He told me many things\
76	And he said: "Son,\
77	There's a lot of things in this world\
78	You're gonna have no use for\
79	And when you get blue\
80	And you've lost all your dreams\
81	There's nothin' like a campfire and a can of beans"
82	* GothicCountryMusic: The album's [[SouthernGothic Gothic Americana]] themes are consistent with this genre, if the instrumentation is a bit [[HellIsThatNoise weirder]] than usual.
83	* GratuitousGerman: "The Black Rider" is sang with a mock German accent.
84	* GratuitousRussian: "Russian Dance" has a line in Russian: "One-two-three-four."
85	* TheGrotesque: The acts described in "Lucky Day Overture" feature such freak show attractions. See also RealLifeWritesThePlot below.
86	* HaveAGayOldTime: "The Black Rider", in which the audience is guaranteed to have "a gay old time."
87	* HypocriticalHumor: In the German play, the Announcer and his Igor goof around at the beginning of the 2nd act. Igor plays the radio station search button. When it turns into an OverlyLongGag, the radio plays a recorded snippet of [[CausticCritic Marcel Reich-Ranicki]] complaining that this is nonsense and dramaturgically drawn-out.
88	* HomingProjectile: In "Crossroads", the devil gives Wilhelm magic bullets that never fail to hit their target.
89	* {{Instrumental}}: "Black Box Theme", "Flash Pan Hunter/Intro", "Russian Dance", "Gospel Train/Orchestra", and "Interlude".
90	* IWantSong: "But He's Not Wilhelm", sung by Agathe about how she wants to marry Wilhelm.
91	* LyricalDissonance: "Lucky Day Overture" has a gentle musical fanfare band playing, while Waits screams in a megaphone about the bizarre things the people can see in his circus.
92	* MinimalisticCoverArt: The cover shows the name of the artist and the title of the album written in such big letter type that it covers the entire album cover.
93	* MinisculeRocking: Three pieces ("Flash Pan Hunter/Intro", "That's The Way", and "Carnival") clock in at about a minute. "Interlude" is eighteen seconds of gloomy trumpet.
94	* OneWordTitle: "November", "Crossroads", "Interlude", and "Carnival".
95	* RealLifeWritesThePlot: The [[TheGrotesque human oddities]] mentioned in "Lucky Day Overture" are all real-life freakshow artists from the 19th and 20th century: Lya Graf [[note]]who suffered from [[LittlePeople dwarfism]] and was indeed once photographed sitting on J.P. Morgan's lap, as Waits sang.[[/note]], Percilla Bejano the monkey woman [[note]]whose face had some resemblance to a monkey and [[GirlsWithMoustaches who also had a beard]][[/note]], Jo-Jo the dog faced boy [[note]]whose real name was Fedor Jeftichew. He suffered from hypertrichosis, which made his hair grow abnormally long all over his body. Music/{{Eels}} was also inspired to write a song about him: "Dog Face Boy" on ''Music/{{Souljacker}}''.[[/note]], Milton Malone the human skeleton [[note]]An incredibly thin man[[/note]], Grace [=McDaniels=] the mule-faced woman [[note]]a woman born with grotesque facial deformity called the syndrome of Sturge-Weber.[[/note]], Sealo the seal boy "who has flippers for arms" [[note]]He was born as Stanislaus Berent and suffered from phocomelia[[/note]], Johnny Eck "the man born without a body, he walks on his hands" [[note]]Eck also appeared in the CultClassic ''Film/{{Freaks}}''. Waits wrote another song about him on ''Music/{{Alice\|TomWaitsAlbum}}''.[[/note]], Gerd Bessler the human pincushion [[note]]An inside joke on behalf of Waits. Gerd Bessler is not a freak. He is the sound technician for "The Black Rider" and plays violin on "Crossroads".[[/note]], Ko-Ko the bird girl [[note]]whose real name was Minnie Woolsey. She suffered from nanocephaly, which is a dwarfism condition in combination with an odd-shaped head. Apart from that she was also blind, mentally handicapped, toothless, and mostly bald. She also appeared in ''Film/{{Freaks}}''[[/note]], Mortado the human fountain [[note]]A man with holes in his hands, who had an act where water shot out of him, making him appear like a human fountain[[/note]], and Radian the human torso [[note]]A man born without any limbs and who also appeared in ''Film/{{Freaks}}''[[/note]].
96	* RecklessGunUsage: Asking the devil to give you sharp shooting talent in exchange for your soul: you just KNOW that's gonna backfire!
97	* RockOpera: This is a prime example of a rock opera, based on the story that was also turned into the opera ''[[Theatre/DerFreischutz Der Freischütz]]''.
98	* SanitySlippageSong: "Lucky Day", sung by Wilhelm after accidentally murdering his bride-to-be on their wedding day, before being dragged off to hell by Pegleg the devil.
99	* ShoutOut:
100	** "Lucky Day Overture" provides a shout-out to ''Film/TheySavedHitlersBrain'' and 19th century billionaire J.P. Morgan. The song also mentions many real life sideshow artists from the 19th and early 20th century, among them Johnny Eck, Ko-Ko the bird girl, and Radian the human torso, who all appeared in ''Film/{{Freaks}}''.
101	--->You'll see Hitler's brain\
102	See Lea Graff the German midget who sat in J.P. Morgan's lap
103	** "The Black Rider" mentions "I'll drop you off in Harlem with the Black Rider", a reference to the jazz song "Drop Me Off In Harlem" by Music/DukeEllington.
104	* SmokingIsNotCool: "Gospel Train":
105	-->Well, this train don't carry no smokers
106	* SpecialGuest: "It Ain't No Sin" is "sung" by Creator/WilliamSBurroughs, which makes it sound all the creepier.
107	* SpokenWordInMusic: Creator/WilliamSBurroughs' singing is closer to talking than anything else.
108	* StopAndGo: "Gospel Train Orchestra" is an instrumental piece which drags along and often halts, only to keep on going immediately afterwards.
109	* StrippedToTheBone: "The Black Rider" and "It Ain't No Sin".
110	-->When it gets too hot for comfort\
111	And you can't get an ice cream cone\
112	It ain't no sin to take off your skin\
113	And dance around in your bones
114	* TickTockTune: "Oily Night".
115	* TheTragicRose: "The Last Rose of Summer":
116	-->I'm taking out my winter clothes\
117	My garden knows what's wrong\
118	The petals of my favorite rose\
119	Be in the shadows dark and long
120	* TrainSong: "Gospel Train":
121	-->Listen to me, come on people\
122	Cause it's starting to rain\
123	Get on board\
124	Ride the gospel train\
125	Don't listen to the devil\
126	He got ways to fool you
127	* VillainSong: "Just The Right Bullets" and "Flash Pan Hunter", sung by Pegleg the devil. "Oily Night" [[spoiler:goes along with a satanic ritual]].

Context Music / TheBlackRider