SARAH SILVERMAN –
SONGS OF THE SARAH SILVERMAN PROGRAM (COMEDY CENTRAL RECORDS)
Subtitled “From Our
Rears To Your Ears!” this is something of a strange curiosity of a record but
no less wonderful with it. And inside
the booklet there is a message from Sarah herself: “Well, we finally put all
our songs on CDs. Play them while you
are making love, or doody”.
I think the Sarah
Silverman Program was something of a confused beast. This is probably demonstrated by the shoddy
manner with which it was originally treated (was it two seasons or three –
nobody really knows). Personally I went
for it immediately, often to my detriment I like bad taste comedy and these
days its tasting worse than ever as limits get pushed further and further. In essence these are boundaries that have
long since surpassed in public life and now as they seep into art and
entertainment suddenly this gives people a sense of entitlement to cry
foul. Begs the question: is an awful
statement worse when made to a large audience?
In many ways I guess so but the substance and essence of the piece is
not new. Ultimately you just come to the
conclusion that people are hypocrites.
Milked for the full
ninety nine tracks available on the CD this is a combination of those short
songs from the TV series (36 in total) in addition to various sound bites and
jokes. It feels like such a weird
throwback concept to a time before the internet and everything being available
at the click of a mouse. That this CD
even exists feels something of an achievement.
Thus I feel the need to celebrate it.
Surveying the scene
only twenty six of the tracks make it past the minute mark. That is barely a quarter of the collection.
Within two tracks
Silverman has shit herself as it all resembles some kind of memory akin to
reading old text messages. The humour
and fun is not so much in the snippets, its in the moments they originally came
from which pretty much makes this mostly for fans of the show only.
Other ghastly
occurrences include a conversation to God justifying her stealing batteries,
nostalgia for an abortion at the eight and a half month mark, patronising the
homeless (played by Zach Galifianakis), convincing all her friends that she has
AIDS, explicitly teaching a classroom of children how you catch AIDS, she
becomes an animal sexual offender and all kinds of awful things occur to her
mother’s corpse. She is awful, selfish
right to the end on track 99.
If you’re looking for
a stand out track let me recommend track 48 “That’s Been Done Song” with its cynical
robotic gestures. And on “Dry Sheets,
Ice Cream, Jellybeans” her voice reminds me of Juliana Hatfield even if the
lyrical content is somewhat removed to say the least. Then there is a Kate Bush moment that comes
with “Opposite Day” as the music prowess peaks in collaboration with Keb’ Mo on
“Blind Woman Blues”.
Throughout the process
she is ably assisted and accompanied by Brian Posehn, Steve Agee, Jay Johnston
and her sister Laura Silverman. And
keeping with his metal affection Posehn finds opportunity to rock out on “Glad
I Hurt My Hand”. There’s a lot of talent
on show here.
In the absence of a
foam finger or mouse mat, this will have serve as an adequate souvenir and
reminder of a very fun show.
And despite these nice
words the cow still has me blocked on Twitter.
Some people.
Thesaurus moment:
ungenerous.
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