Daria's Sick Sad World Massacre
As adapted by Bob Marley (re stolen) from Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant Massacre."
(spoken)
This song is called Daria's Sick Sad World, and it's about Daria and the Sick Sad World she lives in, but Daria's Sick Sad World isn't the name of the World, that's just the name of the song and that's why I called the song "Daria's Sick Sad World."
(sung, with acoustic guitar)
You can get some intelligence, in Daria's Sick Sad World
You can get some intelligence, in Daria's Sick Sad World!!
Tune right in, it's on MTV
Crammed in ahead of "Say What, Karaoke!"
You can get some intelligence, in Daria's Sick Sad World.
(spoken)
Now it all started about four Thanksgivings ago, about four years ago right before Thanksgiving, when my friend and I first saw Daria arrive in the Sick Sad World she lives in, but Daria doesn't just literally live in the Sick Sad World, she lives in a town called Lawndale, in a suburban split-level, with Helen, Jake and Quinn her sister. And livin in that suburban split-level like that, and what with being the average, suburban upper-middle-class family that they are, Helen and Jake went and enrolled Daria and Quinn in Lawndale High School. Seeing how Daria and Quinn were enrolled in Lawndale High, and since Helen was working her usual 12 plus hours at her power law firm that day, it ended up being Jake who drove Quinn and Daria to their first day of classes at Lawndale High.
Well, they got there and Quinn naturally attracted a lot of attention on account of being outgoing and cute there and Daria figured it would be a friendly gesture towards her sibling (and more likely to preserve her sanity) if she just went straight to the Lawndale High School office and checked herself in. So Daria ignored the half-a-dozen sycophants Quinn had managed to attract, said goodbye to her dad from the back of his blue, leased Lexus, gathered her wits and composure and other means of coping with the every-day inanity of life and headed on toward the Lawndale High School Office.
Well, she got there, and a certain High School Principle by the name of Ms. Li made it clear to her that before she could go to class she would have to take a tour of the High School. And Daria had never heard of having to take a tour of a High School before she went to class and so with malice aforethought, Daria followed Ms. Li and all the other new students as they walked off into the halls of Lawndale High, looking for some form of amusement, if not stimulation and intelligence, in such an insipid and dull environment.
She didn't find any. Until Daria was required to take a psychological test administered by the school counselor, Ms. Manson and about half-way through the test Daria was presented with a perfect opening for one of her trademark sarcastic mind games. And seeing as how Daria figured it would be more amusing to screw with the counselor's head rather than just put up with the stupidity of the situation and rather than just answer the questions like a good little drone, she felt like getting a few cheap laughs out of it.
That's what she did, and she made it through her first day of classes, walked home from school, had a dinner with her family that was about par for the course, and everything was going as well as could be expected there when Helen got a call from the school about Daria. And Helen said "Hello? Yes. Uh, yes, she's my daughter. I see. Listen, will this require any parent-teacher conferences or anything, and if so is this the sort of thing my assistant can handle? Okay, great. Bye! You girls took a psychological test at school today?" Which Daria replied to by not replying to her mother at all.
About ten seconds after hanging up the telephone, Helen finally arrived at the truth of the matter and she said that Daria had apparently done less than wonderful on the psychological exam and the school was requiring her to take a special class at the end of which she would be tested again. Which occasioned an outburst of disbelief from Quinn and an outburst of misguided anger from Jake, which frankly gave Daria plenty of things to talk about in the required special class she would be retested at the end of, as she gathered her wits and composure and other means of coping with the every-day inanity of life and headed on toward the inevitable confrontation with her mother.
Now friends, there was only one or two things Helen could have done now that Daria had to take a required self-esteem class and the first was give her support for being stuck in this rather uncomfortable situation which was not very likely and Daria didn't expect it, and the other thing was Helen could bawl her out and express her outrage and disbelief at her daughter's lack of esteem which was what Daria expected. But when she got to the inevitable confrontation with her mother, it turned out that there was a third possibility that she had not even counted upon and that was that her mother would reprimand Jake for expressing his anger at Daria before immediately contradicting herself and going off on tirade. Shaking the table. To which Daria, taking advantage of the situation, said "Don't worry. I don't have low self-esteem. It's a mistake." To which Jake replied "I'll say!" After which Daria proceeded to go in for the kill by saying "I have low esteem for everyone else."
And that pretty much summed up Daria's situation in a nut shell, right there, and she sat in the front row at the quote self-esteem class unquote the next day. I want to tell you about Lawndale High School, where this happened here, they got a Football Team full of popular dumb jocks and a large population of airhead cheerleaders but when Daria got to the self-esteem class there wasn't a single popular dumb jock, or airhead cheerleader in the bunch, this being a highly un-popular thing for people to be involved in and nobody with any popularity whatsoever wanted to have anything to do with it. And Mr. O'Neil, the self-esteem teacher, was using all kinds of meaningless and stupid psychobabble he had memorized by rote to teach the self-esteem class.
He was going on and on about, "Esteem, a teen", "realizing actuality", "saying I am" and he inflicted a five minute speech full of pop psychology, in a tedious and meaningless manner, while smiling like an idiot and explaining how self-esteem was such a wonderful thing for everybody to have. Took no notice of the, demeanor, disposition, attention span, or names of his students and that's not to mention deflecting Daria when she tried to ask a question.
After the ordeal, Daria walked home with her new friend Jane. Jane said that the next class they put the the girls and the guys in separate rooms and a female counselor talks to the girls. Said "So, then, after the role-playing, next class they put the girls and the guys in separate rooms and a female counselor talks to us about body image." And Daria said "I can understand them putting us in seperate rooms so that the boys don't have to hear about body image, but what do they talk to the boys about?" And then it occurred to them both and they both said together "Nocturnal emissions." Now not long after, Daria arrived home and found Helen waiting there for her and she said "Hi Honey" to which Daria said in disbelief "Mom? You feeling all right? It's not even 5:00 yet." Helen being a lawyer and working God knew how many hours a week her being home that early was rather unusual for her. And she said "I don't pretend I'm going to cure you, but if a lack of mother-daughter bonding is part of your problem, we're going to remedy that right now. We're going out to do something you want to do." Helen was making sure, and friends Helen was, because she dragged Daria all the way out to Cashman's department store so Daria couldn't hide in her room on some pretext and she forced Daria to watch as she tried on business suits so Daria couldn't go someplace else, avoid interaction with her mother and have an escape. Helen was making sure, and it was about four or five hours later, that Daria (remember Daria? Obviously this is a song about Daria) made it out of parent-child hell, went back to the suburban split-level, had a dinner with her family that was about par for the course and everything was going as well as could be expected when she went back to the self-esteem class.
She walked in with Jane, sat down, Mr. O'Neil came in with his five minute speech full of pop psychology, delivered in a tedious and meaningless manner, while smiling like an idiot and explaining how self-esteem was such a wonderful thing for everybody to have, sat down. At the end of the class, he asked Daria a question said "Um... you. What's a daydream that you'd like to see come true?" And Daria said "Well, I guess I'd like my whole family to do something together." To which Mr. O'Neil replied "Excellent" before Daria shot him down with "Something that'll really make them suffer!" Mr. O'Neill looked at Daria for a moment, then thought back over his five minute speech full of pop psychology, delivered in a tedious and meaningless manner, while smiling like an idiot and explaining how self-esteem was such a wonderful thing for everybody to have, then looked at Daria again. Then thought back over his five minute speech full of pop psychology, delivered in a tedious and meaningless manner, while smiling like an idiot and explaining how self-esteem was such a wonderful thing for everybody to have and probably would have started to cry if he hadn't come to the realization that it was a typical case of a youngster with severe problems at home and their wasn't nothing he could do about it and his five minute speech full of pop psychology, delivered in a tedious and meaningless manner, while smiling like an idiot and explaining how self-esteem was such a wonderful thing for everybody to have wasn't going to do Daria a whole lot of good. And Daria walked out of there with congratulations from Jane for nailing O'Neil right where he lived and later she guilted her family into taking her to "Pizza Forest" as revenge for what she'd had to put up with, but that's not what I came to tell you about.
Came to talk about being a Daria fan.
They got a University out in the Midwest, it's called the State College, where you enroll, you get tested, arrested, infested, unrested, bested and pestered. I went up there last summer to take care of some pre-requisites for my degree, and I moved in, settled on in, got good and relaxed working out and studying the week before, so I looked and felt my best when I started going to class. Cause I wanted to look like the all-American kid from the suburbs outside of D.C, man I wanted, I wanted to feel like the all-, I wanted to be the all American kid from the suburbs outside of D.C., and I walked in, sat down, I was marked down, marked up, hung up, and all kinds o' mean nasty ugly things. And I walked in, made an appointment with my academic advisor and his secretary gave me a piece of paper, said "Kid, see the advisor, room 3204."
And I went up there, I said, "Sir, I want a 4.0. I mean, I wanna, I wanna 4.0. 4.0. I wanna, I wanna study, I wanna study all day and all night. Eat lousy tasteless dorm food. I mean 4.0, 4.0, 4.0, 4.0." And I started jumpin up and down yelling, "4.0, 4.0," and he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, "4.0, 4.0." And he leaned over the desk, shook my hand, sent me on out, said, "You're our boy."
Didn't feel too good about it.
Proceeded on through my classes gettin tested, arrested, infested, unrested, bested and pestered and all kinds of stuff that they was doin' to me at the thing there, and I was there for one month, two months, three months, I was there for a long time going through all kinds of mean nasty ugly things and I was just having a tough time there and they was testing, pestering me about every single thing I knew about physics and mathematics and my only pleasure was gettin to watch new episodes of Daria every so often. Proceeded through, and I finally worked up the nerve to watch Daria on the big screen television in the TV lounge my last night there and a fellow came up to me and I looked up and said, "What do you want?" He said, "Man, I only have one question. Have you ever seen this show before?"
And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Daria's Sick Sad World Massacre, with full orchestration and five part harmony and stuff like that and all the phenome... - and he stopped me right there and said, "Man, you mind if we watch something else?"
And I proceeded to tell him the story of the five minute speech full of pop psychology, told in a tedious and meaningless manner, while Mr. O'Neil smiled like an idiot and explained how self-esteem was such a wonderful thing for everybody to have, and he stopped me right there and said, "Man, you are one seriously obsessed fanboy!!"
But I, I stayed on the bench in front of the tv, that being where I could get the best view of the proceedings as Jane got a boyfriend (the episode being Jane's Addition), but it turned out, there was all kinds of brain-dead, airhead people sitting next to me on the bench there. Say What Karaoke fans, Blame Game nuts. ROAD RULES FANS!! Road Rules fans sitting right there on the bench next to me! And they was brain-dead and stupid and airhead type guys and gals sitting on the bench next to me! And the dumbest, in-bred, most airheaded one, the most brain-dead Road Rules fan of them all, was coming over to me and he was dumb and brain-dead and in-bred and all kinds of things and he sat down next to me and said, "Man, whad'ya watchin?" I said, "I'm not watchin nothing, I was just channel surfing" He said, "What are you watchin, right now, Man?" And I said, "Daria." And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, "To pass the time before Fanatic." And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about Say What Karaoke, and Road Rules vs. Real World, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench. And everything was fine, we was drinking cokes and all kinds of things and the only reason I'm here singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the tv lounge wherever you are ,just walk in say "Folks, You can get some intelligence, in Daria's Sick Sad World" And walk out. You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really obsessed with the show and they won't mess with'em. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both real partners in crime and they won't mess with either of them. And if three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Daria's Sick Sad World and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Daria's Sick Sad World and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement!
And that's what it is, the Daria's Sick Sad World Anti-massacre movement and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the guitar.
With feeling. So we'll wait for it to come around on the guitar, here and sing it when it does. Here it comes.
You can get some intelligence, in Daria's Sick Sad World
You can get some intelligence, in Daria's Sick Sad World!!
Tune right in, it's on MTV
Crammed in ahead of "Say What, Karaoke!"
You can get some intelligence, in Daria's Sick Sad World.
That was horrible. If you want to end tv lounge discrimination and stuff you got to sing loud. I've been singing this song now for twenty five minutes. I could sing it for another twenty five minutes. I'm not proud... or tired.
So we'll wait till it comes around again, and this time with four part harmony and feeling.
We're just waitin' for it to come around is what we're doing.
All right now.
(sung, with acoustic guitar)
You can get some intelligence, in Daria's Sick Sad World
(Excepting Kevin!!)
You can get some intelligence, in Daria's Sick Sad World!!
Tune right in, it's on MTV
Crammed in ahead of "Say What, Karaoke!"
You can get some intelligence, in Daria's Sick Sad World.
Da da da da da da da dum
In Daria's Sick Sad World!!!!!!!
(applause?)
[-)