Mix - Fake News: Drowning in Greyscale

[ptahrrific]

Medium: Television
Fandom: The Colbert Report
Subject: Liberal!"Stephen"
Title: Drowning in Greyscale

A mix for the Liberalverse. The title is stolen from sarcasticsra's Mirror, Mirror.

Bobby McFerrin - Don't Worry, Be Happy
While the conservative Stephen is hell-bent on being angry all the time, the liberal version tries just as aggressively not to be upset about anything.

Ain't got no place to lay your head
Somebody came and took your bed
Don't worry, be happy
The landlord say your rent is late
He may have to litigate
Don't worry, (ha-ha ha-ha ha-ha) be happy (look at me, I'm happy)




Ziggy Marley - Love Is My Religion
Stephen grew up in a strict Catholic family. For the liberal version, this put him off organized faith forever. (But if it's your thing, he's cool with that too.)

I don't condemn, I don't convert
This is a calling, have you heard
Bring all the lovers to the fold
'Cause no one is gonna lose their soul

Love is my religion
Love is my religion
Love is my religion
Hey, you can take it or leave it
And you don't have to believe it

I don't want to fight
Hey let's go fly a kite
There's nothing that we can't cure
And I'll keep you in my arms for sure




Alanis Morissette - Baba
Okay, there was the obligatory hippie liberal "exploration of Eastern religion." It didn't work out.

How long will this take, Baba
How long have we been sleeping
Do you see me hanging on to every word you say

How soon will I be holy
How much will this cost, guru
How much longer 'til you completely absolve me




Harvey Danger - Flagpole Sitta
Other sources of anxiety: the large swath of the public that votes stupidly; white liberal guilt over how much money he makes; the Man. No wonder he needs a little chemical relief once in a while.

Been around the world and found
That only stupid people are breeding
The cretins cloning and feeding
And I don't even own a TV...

I'm not sick but I'm not well
And it's a sin, to live so well

I wanna publish zines
And rage against machines
I wanna pierce my tongue
It doesn't hurt, it feels fine
The trivial sublime
I'd like to turn off time
And kill my mind




Dave Matthews Band - Grey Street
Bleeding-heart liberal, drowning in greyscale.

There's loneliness inside her
And she'd do anything to fill it in
And though it's red blood bleeding from her now
It feels like cold blue ice in her heart
When all the colors mix together
To grey
And it breaks her heart




Billy Joel - Shades of Grey
The major source of Stephen's distress. After rebelling against the black-and-white thinking he was raised with, he's so devoted to seeing all sides of the issues that he's paralyzed with indecision.

Some things were perfectly clear, seen with the vision of youth
No doubts and nothing to fear, I claimed the corner on truth
These days it's harder to say I know what I'm fighting for
My faith is falling away
I'm not that sure anymore...

Now, with the wisdom of years, I try to reason things out
And the only people I fear are those who never have doubts
Save us all from arrogant men, and all the causes they're for
I won't be righteous again
I'm not that sure anymore

Shades of grey are all that I find
When I look to they enemy line
There ain't no rainbows shining on me
Shades of grey are the colours I see




John Mellencamp - I Need A Lover
Oh, and he's not good at abstinence. Or fidelity. Long-term relationships are definitely not his forte.

Hey, I just can't face shakin' in this bedroom
One more night alone...

I need a lover that won't drive me crazy
Some girl to thrill me and then go away
I need a lover that won't drive me crazy
Some girl that knows the meaning of, uh,
"Hey, hit the highway"




Chris Cagle - What Kinda Gone
He overthinks everything; he thinks everything is up for negotiation; he can't take "no" for an answer without demanding an explanation. (This song is his reaction when his wife leaves.)

Well it's gettin' dark out, she ain't back yet
Ain't called home, turned off the phone
Ah man, hah, this might not be good
I would have stopped her, when she went to leave
But I didn't 'cause I didn't really think what I'm thinkin' now
I'm still not sure what gone is all about

Well, there's gone for good, and there's good and gone
And there's gone with the long before it
I wish she'd been just a little more clear
Well, there's gone for the day, and gone for the night
And gone for the rest of your doggone life
Is it whiskey night or just a couple beers?
I mean, what kind of gone are we talkin' 'bout here?




Jack Off Jill - Nazi Halo
So if you're angry with him, and sick of his inability to take a stand on anything, you need to spell it out in the most blatant terms possible.

Bring your IQ and try to understand
Just cause I'm listening
Don't mean we're still friends
Can't fix my problem
You crossed a thin line
You can't just work it out
Not with me this time...

Fuck your opinions
Fuck your lack of spine
When you are miserable
Know that I'm just fine




Plumb - Better
It's pretty dramatic from Stephen's side too, as he lets himself get hurt over and over rather than accept that he can't be friends with everyone.

I don't want to care
And I don't want to hate
And I don't want to see you fall too far away
All because of fear
'Cause when you're afraid
You lash out at me
When you say all the things that you never meant to say
And try to break me

But in the end, what leaves you broken
In the end, makes you better, yeah

Yeah, I don't want to hate
I don't want to be broken
I don't want to hate you




Simon & Garfunkel - El Condor Pasa (If I Could)
A touch of melancholy. He doesn't have anything against the city, but if pressed, this nature-loving environmentalist will admit....

I'd rather be a forest than a street
Yes, I would
If I could
I surely would

I'd rather feel the earth beneath my feet
Yes, I would
If I only could
I surely would




Little River Band - Cool Change
Once in a while a liberal needs some alone time, to patch up that bleeding heart a little.

If there's one thing in my life that's missing
It's the time that I spend alone
Sailing on the cool and bright clear water...
The albatross and the whales
They are my brothers

It's kind of a special feeling
When you're out on the sea alone
Staring at the full moon like a lover

Time for a cool change
I know that it's time for a cool change
Now that my life is so prearranged
I know that it's time for a cool change

I've never been romantic
And sometimes, I don't care
I know it may sound selfish
But let me breathe the air

Rebloggable on Tumblr | Listen on 8tracks

Comments

[melannen]

Awesome fanmix!

...I just have to note for the record that I'm fairly sure liberal!Stephen is old enough that he wouldn't be able to listen to "Don't Worry, Be Happy". Yes, I know, it seems like a liberal song, and Bobby McFerrin is awesome, but that song came out in 1988. And Bush the First adopted it as the theme of his presidential campaign.

As a result, apparently, nobody who was active in liberal politics in the late '80s can listen to that song without getting viscerally angry over Republican hypocrisy about poverty. (I learned this when I put it on one of my election playlists last year and my mother made me skip it every time because it *still* reminded her too strongly of that election, which may have been the first in the modern era of Republicans winning national elections by simply blatantly lying, and the strategy of turning 'liberal' into a dirty word. And their use of McFerrin's song was the exemplar of everything that was wrong with the campaign.)

Not that I'm still bitter or anything about the first election I remember the Democrats being cheated out of.

(And maybe Stephen forces himself to listen to it in order to show how forgive-and-forget he is. Because he's just that kind of guy!)

[ptahrrific]

Thanks!

And, wow, great history lesson. I had no idea.

And maybe Stephen forces himself to listen to it in order to show how forgive-and-forget he is. Because he's just that kind of guy!

Haha, yes. That's him to a T.

[(Anonymous)]

Love what you do with l!Stephen. You've developed his personality so well, with so little to go on.

Whenever he comes up, I have this thought about l!Stephen's sexuality: Where c!Stephen is gay, but tries deperately to convince himself and others that he is straight (the "moral" way to be) by becoming involved with women, c!Stephen is also gay but tries to convince himself and others that he is pansexual (the "open-minded" way to be). Therefore they both are supressing their true natures, in order to behave the way they "should", and making themselves unhappy in relationships (with women) that will never really work out, merely for the sake of appearances.

~A. Fann

[ptahrrific]

Thanks!

And, oh man, you've hit the nail on the head about his sexuality. Especially since the poor guy worries that he's being anti-feminist. ("The vagina is a beautiful thing, Jon! Why wouldn't I want to touch it?")

[pseudo_tsuga]

I really want to sing "Nazi Halo" to a lot of my friends. *sigh* This is a great fanmix.

[ptahrrific]

Lol, current friends, or former friends?

It's the kind of song that would come in useful among permissive, socially awkward geeks a lot, I think. (Myself included. :/)

And thanks!

[pseudo_tsuga]

My friend once said that she couldn't hate anyone who thought they were doing the right thing. When I asked her about Stalin, she said she couldn't hate him, because after all, he only did what he thought was right! (I'm not sure even that's true, but anyway.)

More generally, growing up in San Francisco, I see l!Stephen's faults everywhere and it drives me crazy. That's one of the reasons I love your series so much.

[ptahrrific]

Oooh. Yeah, that's definitely an l!Stephen thing to think. (He's almost said the same thing about Hitler a couple of times, but then he stops and thinks about Jon being Jewish, and gets very quiet, and changes the subject. So at least Jon is a good influence.)

Glad to hear this is ringing true ^_^

[sarcasticsra]

It's fitting that you stole that line from me for your title, because I actually stole that line from myself. I used it in a CSI fic a few years ago, about a character, who, amusingly enough, I fleshed out (he was pretty minor, so I got to make up a whole lot) to be pretty similar to "Stephen". Even more amusing is that I wrote a long fic pairing him with an OC who, upon rereading, I realized is a lot like Jon. This was back in 2005, at least a full year before I started considering "Stephen" to be a viable character worthy of exploration. I find it weirdly cool that I was essentially shipping Jon/"Stephen" before I actually started shipping Jon/"Stephen".

Anyway, that popped into my head, so I thought I'd share. This mix is awesome. *steals with wild abandon*

[ptahrrific]

Hee. I think, in some sense, I've always shipped Jon/"Stephen". (Any Arnold/Helga fans in the crowd? How about Lister/Rimmer?)

And thanks!

[aybara_max]

ARNOLD/HELGA <3 <3 <3 ::imagines Stephen yelling "Can it, football head!" at a bemused Jon:: I think you may be on to something there :D

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for this!!!!!! =]