Symphony in Z Minor
Symphony in Z Minor? Yeah that was one of mine. Wrote it back in '67. Seventeen sixty-seven, that is. Damn good year. Well, apart from that one day where I accidentally tore open the 4th dimension with a monkey's fingernail and let out hundreds of tiny crabs with human skin. They burrowed deep into the walls of my apartment and ate all its molecules, reducing it to a spectre of its former self. Although even that was quite funny in hindsight. But apart from that, 1767 was a blast. I was up to my balls in liquor and gold.
Anyway, back to the song. It's one of the most popular pieces of classical music ever written, they say. A masterpiece, I'd elaborate. Or a mistresspiece, for all you politically-correct ladies out there.
Composition
I wrote the earliest draft on a prostitute's back as I blasted ejaculate against her cervix. Following this I forgot about it for many years. Next thing I knew it was 2046 CE and my record label were after me, wondering what I'd been doing with their money for the past millennia. I didn't even know I had a record label! Apparently they own nine tenths of the solar system's wealth. Fortunately, as their army of Beyonce clones turned up at my door armed with nail guns I accidentally reincarnated as a form of coral, and I hid in the Pacific Reef for the next few months. Before long it was 1767 again and I was back to work.
The piece was finally finalised on the 40th Augustus. I was hanging out with with good old Ludwig Van and Wolfgang Amadeus, drinking the green fairy and eating wedding cake. Whenever Mozart was drunk he always used to shout out these random numbers, claiming that they were the formula required to create life. He used to go on and on about that formula, but I never knew what the hell he was talking about. But this day was different. It all started when the three of us had a shared dream, brought on by injecting ourselves with empty hypodermic needles. In the dream, Mozart's numbers were passed to me, and along the way somehow got translated into musical notes. And lo and behold; it was the song! At this point it all came flooding back to me; the key, the tempo, the tired curvature of the prostitute's spine. Everything. For Beethoven I believe the numbers became a handy recipe for seafood risotto. Shame he had a deep and wholly irrational fear of rice.
Reception
The symphony, as you probably know, has been popular for centuries. Not like these "flash in the park" artists of today (although Kate Bush still shifts units in Cydonia. That's on Mars). Back in '67 it was a sensation. The Empress of Austria loved it so much that she sent me two courtesans from her private harem, in return for performing for her every day at 11:11 am. The ladies she sent were very pretty and didn't even have syphilis or anything. I noticed strange markings on the soles of their feet, which I interpreted as a sign that I was allowed to hurt them physically. That's my favourite kind of courtesan, so I was quite pleased. I tied the girls up and force fed them nothing but my own semen for two weeks. Fortunately I had copious amounts of this in storage. It's all I have in my pantry.
Around this time I noticed people were humming my symphony everywhere. Humans, animals, even the wind sounded like it on those cold, drunken nights in which I staggered through Vienna. It became a constant hum in the background; the soundtrack to my life. I heard it in the dripping of taps, the ticking of clocks, the howling of the moon. It followed me everywhere, unscrewing my sanity. I started to imagine my brain had become an oblong.
I went to see Wolfgang, the originator of the mystery code, to see if he could explain it. "What is this throbbing melody that haunts my dreams?" I bellowed. He told me he'd received the numbers in a transmission from outer space, via a machine he'd built called "the Cosmo Phone". I asked if he would show me this device and he said he'd be delighted to. He took me back into his drawing room where the machine was lying on a glass table. He smiled broadly and said "that's it." Disappointingly it wasn't a machine at all but a large watermelon with a face carved into it. He'd even put face-powder and a foppish wig on it. The moron. In anger, I came all over his space phone and stormed out.
The end of the year rolled around once more and I heralded in the new one at a frightening party where everyone was a sort of anthropomorphic animal. "Happy 2046!" said a man with a donkey's head. I just wept in response.
Recordings
In 2046 Symphony in Z Minor can be purchased from almost any electronics media supplier. It is available on CD, cassette, MP3 and MP4. You can even have it emailed directly into your bloodstream if you want, or burnt onto your brain with powerful lasers.
The bit everyone knows is its millionth movement, because it was used in that film where a computer-generated Alec Baldwin goes around blowing stuff up by pointing his penis at it. I think it was called The Man With a Gun for a Cock. My symphony appeared in the infamous 'ill-fated blowjob scene'. It was voted the worst movie ever but still earned five zillion US dollars in its opening second.
Another movement of it was used in an advert for a Beethoven CD, which I really don't understand.
There are dozens of recordings of Symphony in Z Minor, the most popular being the 1767 London Symphony Orchestra's recital. My personal favourite however, was the 2046 version by the Living Instruments of the Woodwind Universe. That conscious piano could really play, it's a shame he committed suicide.
Following my nightmarish New Year's party I even put out a remix, called Symphony in Z Minor: The Re-Jizz. I didn't want to, but my label finally caught up with me. They gave me a squillion pounds and one week to come up with a new record, but instead I went on a bender of unprecedented madness and woke up five minutes before the deadline, surrounded by remote control cars. The Beyonces were once again knocking on my door, nail guns at the ready. I had to come up with something fast, so for want of a better idea I came into an empty CD case and handed them that. They took it and left, jiggling their fuckable brown asses behind them as they teleported back to the submarine head office. For a time I was free. The weird thing is that a few days later I got a call from my label saying they listened to my record and quite enjoyed it. They wanted me to embark upon a jillion-date tour of the lower realms to promote it. Luckily the year was almost up and I found myself back in 1767 again, scot-free.
I've never been so relieved to get out of a tour. Just think how many ears I would've had to come into in order to replicate that sound live. I wouldn't have had the stamina.
Structure
The structure of the piece is rather chaotic, leaping back and forth between rhythms and lacking any kind of a refrain. Back in 1767 I was getting hassled to write down the sheet music so other orchestras could play it, the original draft having long since been murdered by a prostitute-hating serial killer. This proved difficult, like trying to describe thirst without using the word "thirst", or any other word for that matter. I locked myself in my apartment for six months just trying to work out the time signature. It was around this time that I started eating my own hair, thinking it was clouding my brain.
Then, after I'd nearly given up all hope, I got struck by lightning. Not the normal kind of lightning though, this bolt was made entirely of cheese. And in that burning, creamy moment I had an awakening. Like before in the dream the sheet music appeared before me; all the notations, the bars, the beats, even the little graffiti penises I'd drawn in the margins. I grabbed my pad and started scribbling. It poured out of my brain like sperm from a stallion, spilling and ebbing over the page. When I was done, I looked down to see this:
the language of the BRAIN
the language of the SOUL
6a6a6a6a6a6a6a6a6a6a6a6
God is the DEVIL
Clearly this was beyond me. The song would never be committed to paper. Most orchestras have resorted to simply making it up as they go along, which usually results in a perfect recital, provided they are heavily drugged.
Cultural impact
Apart from changing the way people think about music and inspiring dozens of other works, the biggest impact Symphony in Z Minor has had is probably the Summoning. The first time I played it - with Wolfgang and Ludwig as a three-piece garage rock outfit called Infinite Monkeys - an enormous sperm appeared in the living room. It was the size of a hog. Somehow the song had willed it into being.
After a while we realised it wasn't doing any harm so we carried on, but with each subsequent performance of the song, the sperm got larger. By the time the symphony came out on CD it was too big and sticky to fit in my apartment so I had to let it out. These days it's as big as the moon, and twice as evil. It told me that as soon as it's big enough it's going to eat the Earth. Thank Satan that the song only exists in two years (1767 and 2046) otherwise we'd all be doomed with a capital doo.
