Shop Vac – the radio in the background
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OK I've tried to figure this out, but i cannot make out what the radio announcer in the background is saying….can someone clue me in here! Thanks
Here’s JoCo in the comments of the blog post for Shop Vac:
“The newscast is a segment about ads above urinals, and then another about a guy going nuts with a shotgun. It felt a little goofy to drop that in there, but it also gave me chills, so I kept it.”
Don’t know if you need the specific words or if that’ll do. (If you do, another commenter on that same post suggests removing one earbud to listen.)
Ah ha neat idea – I"m going to try the one earbud thing….its weird, I listened to it the first time and totally did not even catch that in the background (in this day and age of constant noise I guess we're just used to filtering out things). Thank you!
You're welcome — and don't forget to let us know what you find, I'm sure other people have the same question!
The second radio clip, "A 49 year old unidentified man went beserk last night…" is also present in the fifth episode of the anime series Cowboy Bebop, "Ballad of Fallen Angels ", when Spike enters Annie's shop for the first time. It is also used in one of Fensler Film's versions of the GI-Joe PSA's, specifically: http://emuse.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/382
I'm curious as to the source of this radio material, as this is the third place I've found it.
OK here's the best I've come up with
the first part seems to go like this (probably a few words wrong here and there but this is the idea of it)"Two men who have come up with an idea for ads reaching a captive audience. The ads can now be seen inside public bathroom stalls. "It may seem silly" says" ….. then that one trails off….
Next is like splinter said –
"A 49 year old unidentified man went beserk last night with a 12 gauge shotgun…:"
Theres a bit more more that I flat out can not understand no matter what. But these do sound like very similar radio clips to the video on ebaumsworld – wonder where the heck they originally came from?
I'm new here. Who knows whether anyone will see this, five months after the rest of the thread?
I subtracted the right channel from the left in that part of the song (instead of just using the left), and so could hear both radio clips in "Shop Vac". It's only a few words more than you already have:
"… the case of two men who have come up with an idea for ads reaching a captive audience. The ads can now be seen inside public bathroom stalls. 'It may seem silly,' says…"
"A forty-nine-year-old, unidentified man went berserk last night, opening fire with a twelve-gauge shotgun in a crowded, downtown…"
I hope it's just a random, creepy thing added to the song. But I could see it, more darkly, intended to foreshadow the fate of the husband. It's a dark song, but is it that dark?
(My best guess about the meaning of the last verse is that he's dreaming about returning to the city. I'd love to actually know, though.)
Hey, Blimix, welcome to the forums! Brilliant idea, subtracting the channels, and thank you for posting your results — as I said five months ago, I have been curious about the words.
My interpretation of the last verse (just my guess, of course) is that it follows the theme of the rest of the song, that is, dissatisfaction with staid suburban life. The speaker goes to bed at bedtime (which is after all what good suburban folk do at bedtime), but he's dreaming of his escape — then he admits to himself that he can't escape, he's "gotta go back there" to his home and his wife and his kids and his shop vac. He's lying there, listening with regret to all the people driving on through the night to who knows where, wishing he could join them but knowing he never will.
[There's a famous passage, known as the Flitcraft Parable, in Hammett's novel _The Maltese Falcon_ — the 1941 Bogart film follows the book pretty closely, but it omits this part. Sam Spade, detective and protagonist, tells about one of his past cases, in which he was hired to track down a successful businessman and family man named Flitcraft. As it turns out, Flitcraft had narrowly avoided death (he'd been walking down the street when something fell and nearly killed him), and he'd decided on the spot to run off to live a more exciting life. After a few years of that, though, he'd tired of it and returned to a city near his old home, started a new business, and remarried. "Shop Vac" has always reminded me of that story.]
It looks like the second phrase was also used in a number of other songs, including Megadeth's "The Scorpion" and Prince's "Segue (IV)." I can't seem to find download links to confirm at the moment, but the lyrics page lists them. I guess it's just from some stock audio collection.
I want to keep this together with the original thread, since it’s pertinent. I was watching the ever-hilarious Fensler Films GI Joe parodies, today. I found one that had the exact same news broadcast clip about the forty-nine year old man going berserk with a shotgun in a crowded downtown restaurant (as it turns out). Along with a couple of other, similar news clips. Mixed in with a non sequitur style only Fensler can pull off.
Partly interesting as it gives a much clearer sounding version of the clip, and secondarily interesting that we could feasibly track down the origins of both clips easier, because we have a few others to look for in that group. Unless we already know the origin of the clips, which would probably make a good Wiki addition.
Have fun,
-Wayne
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