Just Take My Hand, Take a Stand
Apr. 17th, 2011 12:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eilonwyhasemuPreviously, David Cook, Lee DeWyze, Adam Lambert, Ke$ha, and the Followills' neglected rock cred had discovered that the ninth circle does, in fact, contain ultimate evil.
The figure chained in the center of the fountain is wreathed in vile yellow mist. Even partly obscured, he seems vaguely familiar.
Lambert: Ken Warwick?
DeWyze: Now this is a scene I can get behind.
Cook: I didn't realize refusing to try clearing new songs was a mortal sin. Wow.
Followills' Rock Cred: The ninth circle's for treachery.
In the distance behind our heroes, a growly male voice can be heard singing a ballad.
Voice [sings]: Strumming their pain with my fingers, singing their life with my words, killing them softly--
Second Voice [sings]: You're a child, crayon in hand, and you're out of line again, and all your colors are untrue--
Ke$ha: And this Warwick dude's the only person in the music industry who's committed treachery? Right. Did I ever tell you why I control every aspect of my own image?
FRC: Hell's architecture is funny. [Drops ciggie onto slimy floor and lights another.]
Cook: Actually, it's been Beaux Arts since the start of the sixth level. If hell's architecture was funny, it'd look a lot more like the Fry's up near beautiful downtown Burbank.
FRC: Hell's architecture is funny. At most levels, there are 10,000 people.
Lambert: Is this a fire marshall rule?
FRC: What?
Lambert: Venue capacity. If each level of hell has a maximum capacity of 10,000, then--
Ke$ha: First person who starts doing algebra, I'm going to hurt.
DeWyze: Because math is hard?
Ke$ha: Because we're standing in the ninth circle of friggin' hell and it seems kinda irrelevant at this moment.
First voice [sings]: They feel all flushed with fever, embarrassed by the crowd--
Second voice [sings]: You make the border disappear like it was never there--
First voice [sings]: As if I'd found their letters and read each one out loud.
Second voice [sings]: To justify the things you do. The red comes washing down--
FRC: At most levels, there are roughly 10,000 people, speaking metaphorically, rather than literally. At the ninth level, there are 10,000 hells.
Cook: Speaking metaphorically again?
FRC [sighs]: Yes.
Ke$ha: Why?
FRC: Part of the penalty for treachery is isolation.
Ke$ha: So why are we in this ninth level?
FRC: Because Warwick's treachery is relevant to three of you.
DeWyze: He cast the people in my season of Idol, worked with us every f*ckin' week, and then after the season was over, he b*tched endlessly about how awful we were. [to Warwick] Didn't it ever occur to you to help us out while you could?
Ken Warwick: I've got a TV show to put on.
DeWyze: We were that TV show. Dude, if you didn't like us playing instruments, you could have said--
Warwick: And watch you stand like a lump, hitching up your pants?
DeWyze: How about treating us as if we're willing to learn?
First voice [sings, getting nearer]: Strumming their pain with my fingers--
Second voice [sings]: There's no white to be found. I'm reaching out to you to try to take your color--
Cook: And then you couldn't stick to complaining about Season 9. You had to imply that nobody who plays instruments ever connects to an audience. What's up with that?
Warwick: Do you see Kelly Clarkson playing an instrument? Carrie Underwood? Michael Jackson? Adam Lambert?
Cook: Dave Grohl--
Warwick: Who?
Cook: Bruce Springsteen--
Warwick: So he's had some success--
Cook: Paul F*cking McCartney.
Warwick: He played an instrument?
Cook: Guitar, bass, piano, and drums. Oh, and mandolin. Hell, I played guitar in exactly 50% of my Idol performances, and nobody ever complained about my not connecting with an audience.
DeWyze: He's singing to me!
First voice [very close now, sings]: Singing their lives with my words, killing them softly--
Cook: Dude. Chill.
DeWyze: How do you do that?
Cook: The retro slang? I watch a lot of movies.
DeWyze: The camera thing.
Cook: You look into the camera instead of at it. Cool trick once you learn it. Didn't Deborah Bird tell you?
Second voice [also very close now, sings]: So grab your paintbrush. Now's the time to showcase your pain--
Ke$ha [to FRC]: You said this Warwick creep had betrayed three of us.
Lambert [to Ke$ha]: Must be you.
FRC: No, Adam. It's you. By building you up beyond your real achievements, Ken Warwick polarized fan sentiment around you, instigated fanwars, motivated other musicians' fans to offend music journalists by going to war over the merits of their favorites. He did you no favors.
Warwick: It's all about making good TV!
DeWyze: Dude. We have to live with your "good TV" while we launch our careers.
Warwick: If you'd just get in the right box--
First voice [right behind our heroes]: You tell 'em, Ken!
Second voice [also right there]: Your eyes, they speak... Oh, wait, right, f*ck yeah, Ken!
The Phantom of Cain's Ballroom and the Plaid One are standing side-by-side. The Phantom's cloak is ripped and he's lost his rose. The Plaid One has a black eye and a swollen lip.
Lambert: What happened to your brilliant strategy for getting rid of these two?
Phantom: Love unites us.
Plaid: F*ck that. You're gonna distract him--
Phantom: What the hell? You're going to distract him while I rip out his--
DeWyze: Heart?
Plaid: F*ck, no. Hearts are so six levels ago.
Phantom: We want something much more important.
Lambert [to Cook]: What's more important than your heart? Aren't you the ultra-sensitive one?
Cook: Dude. Did you miss the entire encounter with the giant baby? If I was hugely more sensitive than my audience, nobody would relate to my songs.
Lambert: Is this like where the guy with the 250 IQ can't have a conversation with anyone?
Ke$ha: 'Cause to him, we all look like masturbating monkeys?
DeWyze: I did not need that image in my head.
Plaid [roars]: Do you know what we want?
Cook: If you say you want to add my dick to your collection, the answer is no.
Ke$ha [sing-speaks]: I can leave it home when I think it's going to get me in trouble. Or I can rent it out, when I don't need it.
DeWyze: Do you know how disturbing that imagery is?
Plaid: Not your f*cking dick--
Ken Warwick: On Idol, we think more in terms of collecting the contestants' balls.
Cook: You want me to hear me sing for the future of my gonads, buy my new album. It's real, it's raw, it's exciting, and it there's a deluxe edition DVD.
Phantom: We want something much better.
Plaid: We want your brain!
Phantom and Plaid reach into Cook's head simultaneously and each pull out a lobe. It's gray, it's white, it's curly like cauliflower, it's gooey, and it's several feet from being in Cook's head.
Ke$ha: Ew, that's offal.
Cook: How the hell am I thinking without my brain?
FRC: Don't worry. That won't last long.
DeWyze: You didn't bring us here to end like this.
FRC shrugs.
Cook [sings]: Break your neck for some substance. This is temporary sanity, an exercise in vanity--
Phantom [sings]: Close your eyes and surrender to your darkest dreams. Purge the thoughts of the life you knew before--
Plaid: [sings]: Truth is a gun I'm aiming at everyone. I'm driven by fear--
Cool [sings]: So long to the ordinary day, wrought with fictitous tales of how there's any other way--
Phantom [sings]: Softly, deftly, music shall caress you. Hear it, feel it, secretly possess you. Open up your mind, let your fantasies unwind--
Plaid [sings]: It's no longer safe in here. My message is clean--
Cook [sings]: Hold onto anything at all. It's a long way down between the summer and the fall--
Plaid [sings]: Break off from who you've been. Shot in the head! Another one dead!
Phantom [sings]: In this darkness that you know you cannot fight!
Cook: Why are they getting bigger?
FRC: They're you.
Cook: I f*cking know that. Caped dude is the romantic image I got saddled with coming off Idol, even though more than half the songs I sang weren't romantic and the two goopiest ones were chosen for me. Plaid dude is all about Axium, a band I formed in f*cking high school. I've grown beyond both of them.
Ken Warwick: They're drawing on my power.
Cook: Huh?
Warwick: My life's work is to generate conflicting expectations that no one can meet. We need a superstar, so we cast niche artists. We want another Kelly Clarkson, so we throw the girls under a bus. We want a contemporary artist who appeals to teens, so we make you sing songs that your parents made out to.
DeWyze: Brain bleach!
Warwick: We want people to buy your music, so we frame you as personalities plucked from obscurity and pretend your earlier experience didn't exist. We want a winner who appeals to America, so we encourage tiny fan segments to power vote. And now, you're stuck with it!
Cook: So there's no way for me to get my brain back?
Warwick: Once you signed the Idol contract, you made your choices. You know what the Idol contract is like.
Cook: It specifically does not mention selling my soul to the devil or having my brains eaten by giant alter-egos.
DeWyze: You checked?
Cook: I checked the soul-selling bit. The other, I would have noticed. [sings] It's a half-faith blessing for the lessons I've learned, never deserved--
Phantom [sings]: Let your darker side give in to the power of the music that I write--
Plaid [sings]: I can't get a grip when there's nothing to hold onto, but I know I'm better than you!
Phantom: You'll never win! Accept being a romantic fantasy!
Plaid: You'll never win! I have more rock cred than you!
Phantom: Idol defined you--
Plaid: Your best work was before you were twenty--
Phantom: You belong in my box!
Plaid: You belong in my box!
Cook: I don't want to be the man in the box!
Ke$ha: Head down in sh*t. I knew we'd get to that one again.
Lambert [sings]: I am tired of this devil. I am tired of this stuff. I am tired of this business.
DeWyze: What the hell are you doing?
Lambert: Helping.
DeWyze: It's his battle--
Lambert: Bullsh*t.
Ke$ha: Are we head down in that, too?
Lambert: It's all of our battles. You don't think I hear endlessly about whether glam-pop is really me or was I supposed to be a rocker or what? And what about your album reviews? Didn't the New York Times guy go all breathless about how you were more authentic before?
DeWyze: Yeah. But if Dave didn't exist, I wouldn't be compared to him.
Warwick: That's the spirit!
DeWyze: Did you just say something approving to me?
Warwick: Yes! You know you don't want to help David Cook. David Cook is everything you're not--
DeWyze: I never tried to be Dave.
Warwick: Rearranging songs... playing guitar...
DeWyze: This is stuff musicians do. [sings]: I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told. I have squandered my resistance for a pocket full of mumbles. Such are promises.
Lambert [sings]: That man comes on the radio, and he's telling me more and more about some useless information--
Warwick: Don't think I'm impressed.
FRC [lighting a new ciggie]: He's not impressed.
Warwick: Look at them squeezing your friend's brain. He's almost down for the count.
Cook [sings weakly]: If I say that you're everything, would you sing along?
Phantom: Don't worry, baby--
Plaid: We'll sing for you! At the top of our f*ckin' lungs!
DeWyze [sings]: Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.
Lambert [sings]: Supposed to fire my imagination. I can't get no, oh oh no, hey hey hey, that's what I say--
DeWyze [sings]: Askin' only workman's wages, I come lookin' for a job--
Lambert [sings]: I can't get no satisfaction! I can't get no reaction! I try and I try--
Warwick: You'll never defeat me! I am the most powerful man in the Idolsphere! I even have Simon Cowell's balls in a jar in my basement.
Ke$ha [sings]: Bored, stoned, sitting in your basement all alone. 'Cause your little conversation's got around. And look at what we all found out. Look at what we all found out.
DeWyze [sings]: And I get no offers, just a come-on from the whores on Seventh Avenue.
Lambert [sings]: And I try and I try and I try. I can't get no satisfaction.
Ke$ha [sings]: You have a set of loose lips, twisting stories all because you're jealous. Now I know exactly what you're all about--
Warwick: No!
Ke$ha: Oh, yes. The Idolsphere's not the world. There's a big music industry out there, and you're a very small frog in that pond. Your hell is puny.
Cook [weakly sings]: And it never rains when you want it. A hollow little game, and you've won it. Looking for a thrill but you've already done it all.
Ke$ha [sings]: And this is what you're all about. Dude, you're a backstabber. Oh dude, you're such a sh*t talker. And everybody knows it. Everybody knows it.
Lambert [sings]: I can't get no satisfaction! I can't get no satisfaction!
DeWyze [sings]: I do declare, there were times I was so lonely that I took some comfort there.
Cook [sings]: So long, put your blue jeans back on, go home. Remember. Hollywood's not America.
Ke$ha and Lambert [singing]: Oh dude, you're such a backstabber!
Cook and DeWyze [singing]: You can take the heat, but will your heart grow cold?
Ke$ha and Lambert: Oh dude, you're such a sh*t talker!
Cook and DeWyze: Remember. Hollywood's not America.
Warwick: What do you want from me?
DeWyze: I want the end of that White Guys With Guitars sh*t.
Warwick: Done!
Ke$ha and Lambert: Talk, talk, talk!
DeWyze: Prove it.
Warwick: I can't--
DeWyze: Prove it!
Warwick: How?
Cook: The show's recently had something of mine that's relevant to the issue.
Warwick: We never got your balls.
Cook: You know what I mean.
Warwick reaches into his muck and pulls out a guitar with the initials AC on it. He hands it to Cook.
Cook: Good to have you back, buddy.
DeWyze reaches a hand toward Warwick, who pulls out another guitar and hands it to him.
Phantom: That's part of your Idol legend, too.
Plaid: You can't escape us--
Phantom: I'll eat your brain and make you sing "Natural Woman."
Plaid: I'll eat your brain and make you regret your teen years as the best of your life.
Phantom: You can't escape us--
Plaid: You can't defeat us--
Cook: What makes you think I need to?
Plaid: The rules--
Cook: F*ck your rules.
Phantom: Such language in front of a lady!
Cook: You heard the chick. Your hell is puny. It's way too small to hold this! [He plays a riff on the guitar. It's catchy. It's complex.]
DeWyze: That's something I've never heard before.
Cook: New album. [He keeps playing.]
Phantom: That's not--
Plaid: That's almost--
Phantom: That's almost--
Plaid: That's not--
Phantom: I didn't expect--
Plaid: I was hoping for--
DeWyze: How are we going to sing it if it doesn't have lyrics out yet?
Cook: Can you manage four-part harmony on "f*ck your boxes, this is me?"
Ke$ha: I could handle that.
Phantom: I'm sort of--
Plaid: I almost--
Phantom: I almost hear myself in there, but there's more to it--
Plaid: I almost hear myself in there, but there's more to it--
Cook [still playing]: You're so impressed with yourselves for ripping my brains out. You want fresh wounds? I can make you two look like the amateurs you are.
Phantom: This isn't the album I wanted to hear.
Plaid: This can't be the album you wanted to make.
Cook: Believe me, if it wasn't, I would never have taken so f*cking long over it.
Phantom: But--
Plaid: But--
Cook: You know what you two are? You're easy ways out. You're ways not to grow. [He changes keys and rhythm into what's clearly a different song.] You're not big enough now to hold even my brain.
Lambert: Don't encourage them to drop it on the floor!
Cook: It's time for you to put your toys back where they belong.
Plaid [shrinking]: So you think you're gonna be the f*ckin' big seller?
Cook: I think I did what I wanted to do to make my truth commercially viable.
Phantom [shrinking too]: So you're looking forward to having people dig for the story of what these songs are about?
Cook: The story doesn't matter. If I'd wanted the world to know everything I did, I would have told them. I want them to experience how it felt.
Phantom: But without the story, how do we know--
Cook: You know how it felt because that's how the song makes you feel, if I've done it right.
Plaid: But--
Cook: Come on, now. Time. To. Put. It. Back.
The Phantom and the Plaid One have shrunk so much that they can barely reach to put Cook's brain back where it belongs. They're dwindling fast and are knee-high before they fall back into him and vanish. Cook plays one final series of chords, then turns to the FRC, who is applauding slowly.
Cook: This is where you show us the way home.
FRC [pointing to Warwick, whose bonds are loosening]: Have you seen what a mess you've made of things?
Lambert: What do you mean?
FRC: Thanks to your intervention, that one's halfway to redeeming himself. All he needs to do to go home is sing the right song.
Warwick [sings, not very well]: I could spend my life in this sweet surrender! [His bonds immediately tighten.]
Cook, DeWyze, and Lambert: No, not the asteroid song!
Warwick: But it's my favorite--
FRC: You'll never get home singing the most overdone song in Idol history. Just as well. It's a puny hell, but it's home.
DeWyze [sighs and tunes up his guitar]: I think I know what song will get him home. [to Warwick] Will you sing whatever I play?
Warwick: Yes.
DeWyze: And mean it?
Warwick: Yes.
DeWyze [sings]: Well, maybe I can fix this. Then I don't want you to miss this.
Warwick: Do I have to?
DeWyze [sings]: And the sun is raining down!
DeWyze and Warwick [singing]: If you could only stop stop stop running--
Warwick [singing]: If you could only take a second to breathe it in, everything that you know would be beautiful like you. You know they're never gonna stop stop stop your love. Let's pretend the world is waking up--
He vanishes.
So does the Followills' Rock Cred.
Ke$ha: So that's a beautiful ending, but how do we get out of here?
Cook: We're going back to an Idol episode, right?
Lambert: That's the last thing in the real world that I remember.
Cook: Piece of pie. I mean "cake." Pie's good, too, though. [He starts playing another song. DeWyze picks up the fingering three bars behind.]
Cook [sings]: Hey, hey, hey, oh...
Cook and DeWyze [singing]: Won't you come see about me? I'll be alone, dancing you know it, baby.
Lambert [singing]: Tell me your troubles and doubts. Give me everything, inside and out.
Ke$ha [singing]: Love's strange, so real in the dark.
DeWyze [singing]: Think of the tender things that we were working on.
Ke$ha: Only in your head.
DeWyze: It's in the lyrics.
Cook and Lambert [singing]: Slow change may pull us apart--
DeWyze: When the light gets into your heart, baby--
Cook, DeWyze, Lambert and Ke$ha [singing]: Don't you forget about me. Don't, don't, don't, don't--
They are suddenly back on the Idol stage.
Ryan Seacrest: And don't forget to join us for another night with the--
Cook, DeWyze, Lambert and Ke$ha [singing]: Don't you forget about me!
Seacrest: Stars.
The figure chained in the center of the fountain is wreathed in vile yellow mist. Even partly obscured, he seems vaguely familiar.
Lambert: Ken Warwick?
DeWyze: Now this is a scene I can get behind.
Cook: I didn't realize refusing to try clearing new songs was a mortal sin. Wow.
Followills' Rock Cred: The ninth circle's for treachery.
In the distance behind our heroes, a growly male voice can be heard singing a ballad.
Voice [sings]: Strumming their pain with my fingers, singing their life with my words, killing them softly--
Second Voice [sings]: You're a child, crayon in hand, and you're out of line again, and all your colors are untrue--
Ke$ha: And this Warwick dude's the only person in the music industry who's committed treachery? Right. Did I ever tell you why I control every aspect of my own image?
FRC: Hell's architecture is funny. [Drops ciggie onto slimy floor and lights another.]
Cook: Actually, it's been Beaux Arts since the start of the sixth level. If hell's architecture was funny, it'd look a lot more like the Fry's up near beautiful downtown Burbank.
FRC: Hell's architecture is funny. At most levels, there are 10,000 people.
Lambert: Is this a fire marshall rule?
FRC: What?
Lambert: Venue capacity. If each level of hell has a maximum capacity of 10,000, then--
Ke$ha: First person who starts doing algebra, I'm going to hurt.
DeWyze: Because math is hard?
Ke$ha: Because we're standing in the ninth circle of friggin' hell and it seems kinda irrelevant at this moment.
First voice [sings]: They feel all flushed with fever, embarrassed by the crowd--
Second voice [sings]: You make the border disappear like it was never there--
First voice [sings]: As if I'd found their letters and read each one out loud.
Second voice [sings]: To justify the things you do. The red comes washing down--
FRC: At most levels, there are roughly 10,000 people, speaking metaphorically, rather than literally. At the ninth level, there are 10,000 hells.
Cook: Speaking metaphorically again?
FRC [sighs]: Yes.
Ke$ha: Why?
FRC: Part of the penalty for treachery is isolation.
Ke$ha: So why are we in this ninth level?
FRC: Because Warwick's treachery is relevant to three of you.
DeWyze: He cast the people in my season of Idol, worked with us every f*ckin' week, and then after the season was over, he b*tched endlessly about how awful we were. [to Warwick] Didn't it ever occur to you to help us out while you could?
Ken Warwick: I've got a TV show to put on.
DeWyze: We were that TV show. Dude, if you didn't like us playing instruments, you could have said--
Warwick: And watch you stand like a lump, hitching up your pants?
DeWyze: How about treating us as if we're willing to learn?
First voice [sings, getting nearer]: Strumming their pain with my fingers--
Second voice [sings]: There's no white to be found. I'm reaching out to you to try to take your color--
Cook: And then you couldn't stick to complaining about Season 9. You had to imply that nobody who plays instruments ever connects to an audience. What's up with that?
Warwick: Do you see Kelly Clarkson playing an instrument? Carrie Underwood? Michael Jackson? Adam Lambert?
Cook: Dave Grohl--
Warwick: Who?
Cook: Bruce Springsteen--
Warwick: So he's had some success--
Cook: Paul F*cking McCartney.
Warwick: He played an instrument?
Cook: Guitar, bass, piano, and drums. Oh, and mandolin. Hell, I played guitar in exactly 50% of my Idol performances, and nobody ever complained about my not connecting with an audience.
DeWyze: He's singing to me!
First voice [very close now, sings]: Singing their lives with my words, killing them softly--
Cook: Dude. Chill.
DeWyze: How do you do that?
Cook: The retro slang? I watch a lot of movies.
DeWyze: The camera thing.
Cook: You look into the camera instead of at it. Cool trick once you learn it. Didn't Deborah Bird tell you?
Second voice [also very close now, sings]: So grab your paintbrush. Now's the time to showcase your pain--
Ke$ha [to FRC]: You said this Warwick creep had betrayed three of us.
Lambert [to Ke$ha]: Must be you.
FRC: No, Adam. It's you. By building you up beyond your real achievements, Ken Warwick polarized fan sentiment around you, instigated fanwars, motivated other musicians' fans to offend music journalists by going to war over the merits of their favorites. He did you no favors.
Warwick: It's all about making good TV!
DeWyze: Dude. We have to live with your "good TV" while we launch our careers.
Warwick: If you'd just get in the right box--
First voice [right behind our heroes]: You tell 'em, Ken!
Second voice [also right there]: Your eyes, they speak... Oh, wait, right, f*ck yeah, Ken!
The Phantom of Cain's Ballroom and the Plaid One are standing side-by-side. The Phantom's cloak is ripped and he's lost his rose. The Plaid One has a black eye and a swollen lip.
Lambert: What happened to your brilliant strategy for getting rid of these two?
Phantom: Love unites us.
Plaid: F*ck that. You're gonna distract him--
Phantom: What the hell? You're going to distract him while I rip out his--
DeWyze: Heart?
Plaid: F*ck, no. Hearts are so six levels ago.
Phantom: We want something much more important.
Lambert [to Cook]: What's more important than your heart? Aren't you the ultra-sensitive one?
Cook: Dude. Did you miss the entire encounter with the giant baby? If I was hugely more sensitive than my audience, nobody would relate to my songs.
Lambert: Is this like where the guy with the 250 IQ can't have a conversation with anyone?
Ke$ha: 'Cause to him, we all look like masturbating monkeys?
DeWyze: I did not need that image in my head.
Plaid [roars]: Do you know what we want?
Cook: If you say you want to add my dick to your collection, the answer is no.
Ke$ha [sing-speaks]: I can leave it home when I think it's going to get me in trouble. Or I can rent it out, when I don't need it.
DeWyze: Do you know how disturbing that imagery is?
Plaid: Not your f*cking dick--
Ken Warwick: On Idol, we think more in terms of collecting the contestants' balls.
Cook: You want me to hear me sing for the future of my gonads, buy my new album. It's real, it's raw, it's exciting, and it there's a deluxe edition DVD.
Phantom: We want something much better.
Plaid: We want your brain!
Phantom and Plaid reach into Cook's head simultaneously and each pull out a lobe. It's gray, it's white, it's curly like cauliflower, it's gooey, and it's several feet from being in Cook's head.
Ke$ha: Ew, that's offal.
Cook: How the hell am I thinking without my brain?
FRC: Don't worry. That won't last long.
DeWyze: You didn't bring us here to end like this.
FRC shrugs.
Cook [sings]: Break your neck for some substance. This is temporary sanity, an exercise in vanity--
Phantom [sings]: Close your eyes and surrender to your darkest dreams. Purge the thoughts of the life you knew before--
Plaid: [sings]: Truth is a gun I'm aiming at everyone. I'm driven by fear--
Cool [sings]: So long to the ordinary day, wrought with fictitous tales of how there's any other way--
Phantom [sings]: Softly, deftly, music shall caress you. Hear it, feel it, secretly possess you. Open up your mind, let your fantasies unwind--
Plaid [sings]: It's no longer safe in here. My message is clean--
Cook [sings]: Hold onto anything at all. It's a long way down between the summer and the fall--
Plaid [sings]: Break off from who you've been. Shot in the head! Another one dead!
Phantom [sings]: In this darkness that you know you cannot fight!
Cook: Why are they getting bigger?
FRC: They're you.
Cook: I f*cking know that. Caped dude is the romantic image I got saddled with coming off Idol, even though more than half the songs I sang weren't romantic and the two goopiest ones were chosen for me. Plaid dude is all about Axium, a band I formed in f*cking high school. I've grown beyond both of them.
Ken Warwick: They're drawing on my power.
Cook: Huh?
Warwick: My life's work is to generate conflicting expectations that no one can meet. We need a superstar, so we cast niche artists. We want another Kelly Clarkson, so we throw the girls under a bus. We want a contemporary artist who appeals to teens, so we make you sing songs that your parents made out to.
DeWyze: Brain bleach!
Warwick: We want people to buy your music, so we frame you as personalities plucked from obscurity and pretend your earlier experience didn't exist. We want a winner who appeals to America, so we encourage tiny fan segments to power vote. And now, you're stuck with it!
Cook: So there's no way for me to get my brain back?
Warwick: Once you signed the Idol contract, you made your choices. You know what the Idol contract is like.
Cook: It specifically does not mention selling my soul to the devil or having my brains eaten by giant alter-egos.
DeWyze: You checked?
Cook: I checked the soul-selling bit. The other, I would have noticed. [sings] It's a half-faith blessing for the lessons I've learned, never deserved--
Phantom [sings]: Let your darker side give in to the power of the music that I write--
Plaid [sings]: I can't get a grip when there's nothing to hold onto, but I know I'm better than you!
Phantom: You'll never win! Accept being a romantic fantasy!
Plaid: You'll never win! I have more rock cred than you!
Phantom: Idol defined you--
Plaid: Your best work was before you were twenty--
Phantom: You belong in my box!
Plaid: You belong in my box!
Cook: I don't want to be the man in the box!
Ke$ha: Head down in sh*t. I knew we'd get to that one again.
Lambert [sings]: I am tired of this devil. I am tired of this stuff. I am tired of this business.
DeWyze: What the hell are you doing?
Lambert: Helping.
DeWyze: It's his battle--
Lambert: Bullsh*t.
Ke$ha: Are we head down in that, too?
Lambert: It's all of our battles. You don't think I hear endlessly about whether glam-pop is really me or was I supposed to be a rocker or what? And what about your album reviews? Didn't the New York Times guy go all breathless about how you were more authentic before?
DeWyze: Yeah. But if Dave didn't exist, I wouldn't be compared to him.
Warwick: That's the spirit!
DeWyze: Did you just say something approving to me?
Warwick: Yes! You know you don't want to help David Cook. David Cook is everything you're not--
DeWyze: I never tried to be Dave.
Warwick: Rearranging songs... playing guitar...
DeWyze: This is stuff musicians do. [sings]: I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told. I have squandered my resistance for a pocket full of mumbles. Such are promises.
Lambert [sings]: That man comes on the radio, and he's telling me more and more about some useless information--
Warwick: Don't think I'm impressed.
FRC [lighting a new ciggie]: He's not impressed.
Warwick: Look at them squeezing your friend's brain. He's almost down for the count.
Cook [sings weakly]: If I say that you're everything, would you sing along?
Phantom: Don't worry, baby--
Plaid: We'll sing for you! At the top of our f*ckin' lungs!
DeWyze [sings]: Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.
Lambert [sings]: Supposed to fire my imagination. I can't get no, oh oh no, hey hey hey, that's what I say--
DeWyze [sings]: Askin' only workman's wages, I come lookin' for a job--
Lambert [sings]: I can't get no satisfaction! I can't get no reaction! I try and I try--
Warwick: You'll never defeat me! I am the most powerful man in the Idolsphere! I even have Simon Cowell's balls in a jar in my basement.
Ke$ha [sings]: Bored, stoned, sitting in your basement all alone. 'Cause your little conversation's got around. And look at what we all found out. Look at what we all found out.
DeWyze [sings]: And I get no offers, just a come-on from the whores on Seventh Avenue.
Lambert [sings]: And I try and I try and I try. I can't get no satisfaction.
Ke$ha [sings]: You have a set of loose lips, twisting stories all because you're jealous. Now I know exactly what you're all about--
Warwick: No!
Ke$ha: Oh, yes. The Idolsphere's not the world. There's a big music industry out there, and you're a very small frog in that pond. Your hell is puny.
Cook [weakly sings]: And it never rains when you want it. A hollow little game, and you've won it. Looking for a thrill but you've already done it all.
Ke$ha [sings]: And this is what you're all about. Dude, you're a backstabber. Oh dude, you're such a sh*t talker. And everybody knows it. Everybody knows it.
Lambert [sings]: I can't get no satisfaction! I can't get no satisfaction!
DeWyze [sings]: I do declare, there were times I was so lonely that I took some comfort there.
Cook [sings]: So long, put your blue jeans back on, go home. Remember. Hollywood's not America.
Ke$ha and Lambert [singing]: Oh dude, you're such a backstabber!
Cook and DeWyze [singing]: You can take the heat, but will your heart grow cold?
Ke$ha and Lambert: Oh dude, you're such a sh*t talker!
Cook and DeWyze: Remember. Hollywood's not America.
Warwick: What do you want from me?
DeWyze: I want the end of that White Guys With Guitars sh*t.
Warwick: Done!
Ke$ha and Lambert: Talk, talk, talk!
DeWyze: Prove it.
Warwick: I can't--
DeWyze: Prove it!
Warwick: How?
Cook: The show's recently had something of mine that's relevant to the issue.
Warwick: We never got your balls.
Cook: You know what I mean.
Warwick reaches into his muck and pulls out a guitar with the initials AC on it. He hands it to Cook.
Cook: Good to have you back, buddy.
DeWyze reaches a hand toward Warwick, who pulls out another guitar and hands it to him.
Phantom: That's part of your Idol legend, too.
Plaid: You can't escape us--
Phantom: I'll eat your brain and make you sing "Natural Woman."
Plaid: I'll eat your brain and make you regret your teen years as the best of your life.
Phantom: You can't escape us--
Plaid: You can't defeat us--
Cook: What makes you think I need to?
Plaid: The rules--
Cook: F*ck your rules.
Phantom: Such language in front of a lady!
Cook: You heard the chick. Your hell is puny. It's way too small to hold this! [He plays a riff on the guitar. It's catchy. It's complex.]
DeWyze: That's something I've never heard before.
Cook: New album. [He keeps playing.]
Phantom: That's not--
Plaid: That's almost--
Phantom: That's almost--
Plaid: That's not--
Phantom: I didn't expect--
Plaid: I was hoping for--
DeWyze: How are we going to sing it if it doesn't have lyrics out yet?
Cook: Can you manage four-part harmony on "f*ck your boxes, this is me?"
Ke$ha: I could handle that.
Phantom: I'm sort of--
Plaid: I almost--
Phantom: I almost hear myself in there, but there's more to it--
Plaid: I almost hear myself in there, but there's more to it--
Cook [still playing]: You're so impressed with yourselves for ripping my brains out. You want fresh wounds? I can make you two look like the amateurs you are.
Phantom: This isn't the album I wanted to hear.
Plaid: This can't be the album you wanted to make.
Cook: Believe me, if it wasn't, I would never have taken so f*cking long over it.
Phantom: But--
Plaid: But--
Cook: You know what you two are? You're easy ways out. You're ways not to grow. [He changes keys and rhythm into what's clearly a different song.] You're not big enough now to hold even my brain.
Lambert: Don't encourage them to drop it on the floor!
Cook: It's time for you to put your toys back where they belong.
Plaid [shrinking]: So you think you're gonna be the f*ckin' big seller?
Cook: I think I did what I wanted to do to make my truth commercially viable.
Phantom [shrinking too]: So you're looking forward to having people dig for the story of what these songs are about?
Cook: The story doesn't matter. If I'd wanted the world to know everything I did, I would have told them. I want them to experience how it felt.
Phantom: But without the story, how do we know--
Cook: You know how it felt because that's how the song makes you feel, if I've done it right.
Plaid: But--
Cook: Come on, now. Time. To. Put. It. Back.
The Phantom and the Plaid One have shrunk so much that they can barely reach to put Cook's brain back where it belongs. They're dwindling fast and are knee-high before they fall back into him and vanish. Cook plays one final series of chords, then turns to the FRC, who is applauding slowly.
Cook: This is where you show us the way home.
FRC [pointing to Warwick, whose bonds are loosening]: Have you seen what a mess you've made of things?
Lambert: What do you mean?
FRC: Thanks to your intervention, that one's halfway to redeeming himself. All he needs to do to go home is sing the right song.
Warwick [sings, not very well]: I could spend my life in this sweet surrender! [His bonds immediately tighten.]
Cook, DeWyze, and Lambert: No, not the asteroid song!
Warwick: But it's my favorite--
FRC: You'll never get home singing the most overdone song in Idol history. Just as well. It's a puny hell, but it's home.
DeWyze [sighs and tunes up his guitar]: I think I know what song will get him home. [to Warwick] Will you sing whatever I play?
Warwick: Yes.
DeWyze: And mean it?
Warwick: Yes.
DeWyze [sings]: Well, maybe I can fix this. Then I don't want you to miss this.
Warwick: Do I have to?
DeWyze [sings]: And the sun is raining down!
DeWyze and Warwick [singing]: If you could only stop stop stop running--
Warwick [singing]: If you could only take a second to breathe it in, everything that you know would be beautiful like you. You know they're never gonna stop stop stop your love. Let's pretend the world is waking up--
He vanishes.
So does the Followills' Rock Cred.
Ke$ha: So that's a beautiful ending, but how do we get out of here?
Cook: We're going back to an Idol episode, right?
Lambert: That's the last thing in the real world that I remember.
Cook: Piece of pie. I mean "cake." Pie's good, too, though. [He starts playing another song. DeWyze picks up the fingering three bars behind.]
Cook [sings]: Hey, hey, hey, oh...
Cook and DeWyze [singing]: Won't you come see about me? I'll be alone, dancing you know it, baby.
Lambert [singing]: Tell me your troubles and doubts. Give me everything, inside and out.
Ke$ha [singing]: Love's strange, so real in the dark.
DeWyze [singing]: Think of the tender things that we were working on.
Ke$ha: Only in your head.
DeWyze: It's in the lyrics.
Cook and Lambert [singing]: Slow change may pull us apart--
DeWyze: When the light gets into your heart, baby--
Cook, DeWyze, Lambert and Ke$ha [singing]: Don't you forget about me. Don't, don't, don't, don't--
They are suddenly back on the Idol stage.
Ryan Seacrest: And don't forget to join us for another night with the--
Cook, DeWyze, Lambert and Ke$ha [singing]: Don't you forget about me!
Seacrest: Stars.
