14 Meanings
Add Yours
Follow
Share
Q&A
The Actor's Opprobrium Lyrics
I guess I should have known to stay away
From a snuff film by Gene Genet
But the cash was good and the director
Gave me the biggest scene
What does it mean when Pentecostal born-again virgins
Appear picketing in angry protest?
Oh, those sloppy tarts
Have sulphurized hearts
Sure, a dead man quietly pulling on his tongue
In a coffin after being hung
Does make strange erotic cinema
But that was the great master’s vision
And the actors agree to portray
The fiend is best in a death fantasy
Because when one is licking the knife
Ah, well, that is truly the life
Oh, what does it mean
When the stagehand approaches
Wheeling in a guillotine?
Let’s play nice
Yes, I want to be a star
But that’s going too far
Yes, I’m still smarting from the bite
Of coital sessions in gelatinal light
I’m questioning my chosen career
Don’t think I’ll be attending the premier
From a snuff film by Gene Genet
But the cash was good and the director
Gave me the biggest scene
What does it mean when Pentecostal born-again virgins
Appear picketing in angry protest?
Oh, those sloppy tarts
Have sulphurized hearts
In a coffin after being hung
Does make strange erotic cinema
But that was the great master’s vision
And the actors agree to portray
The fiend is best in a death fantasy
Because when one is licking the knife
Ah, well, that is truly the life
When the stagehand approaches
Wheeling in a guillotine?
Let’s play nice
Yes, I want to be a star
But that’s going too far
Of coital sessions in gelatinal light
I’m questioning my chosen career
Don’t think I’ll be attending the premier
Add your song meanings, interpretations, facts, memories & more to the community.
I love this song, it's so frolic-y sounding. :) Can't believe no one has commented it. Very fun song.
Judging by the surface of the lyrics it's about an amateur actor that gets a big part in a porno movie and then he starts wondering if that's what he wants to do for the rest of his life--act.
I think it's more about snuff films and what you are willing to do to make it in a place like Hollywood. To get to the top you have to start at such a low place like snuff films and work your way up and the singer is feeling ashamed of it.
as snuff films aren't actually real, the song uses a humerous/extreme example to represent doing something that seems fun w/o thinking of consequences.
either way, it's a funny song.
Gene Genet made one film. It was about two male prisoners who fall in love.
He also wrote many plays and stories which have been turned into movies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snuff_movie Apparently they do exist. Anyway, I love this song.
It's a pretty funny story, too.
i always thought it was about an actor who was in a snuff film and he's one of the people who get killed. that's why he won't be attending the premier
I think he is referring to Jean-Pierre Jeunet the french director of Amelie.
I don't think he's refering to Jeunet, because "Jean" in French is pronounced similarly to "John". He sings "Gene".
Well he actually is referring to Jean Genet [the correct way to spell it] He mispronounces his name which as somebody said, is pronounced somewhat like "John." I also find it strange that he is relating a snuff film to Jean Genet since the only film he ever did was far from snuff. Though his novels can be a bit violent and erotic.
Jean Genet reputedly said that "The only two things worth writing about are sex and death." So, a 'strangely erotic' scene in a snuff film would take these two themes and fuse them. Genet didn't have to direct a snuff film himself; maybe the naive actor/narrator had been duped into believing that his director was in fact Jean Genet, and now he realizes that he's been had, and nearly been killed himself by the guillotine.
Speaking of guillotine, the real Jean Genet died of throat cancer. There might be something to that guillotine image as a symbol of his throat cancer.