Song of the Week: Animal Not Important by Karen Lindenberg | inspired by Ellen Forney’s Lust

Are you ready for another Song of the Week? I hope so because here it comes.

“Animal Not Important” by Karen Lindenberg |  inspired by Ellen Forney’s Lust

All right, everyone. It is time to go for a ride through the world of… ummm… Animal Costume Sex! For this event, we asked the musicians to pick their favorite illustration from Ellen Forney’s book Lust, a book inspired by the online personal ads of The Strangers Lust Lab, and then use it as inspiration to write a song. Double inspiration!I know it seems a little weird to start off a blog talking about songwriting this way, but the truth is Karen Lindenberg really nailed the curiosity of how one could not care about which animal they would want their lover/complete stranger to dress up as. It is quite curious indeed and maybe even a little confusing.

Musically, Karen picked the perfect instrument for this tune, the ukulele. I always feel like this little four stringed strummy instrument has an inherent comedy to it. This does not mean I don’t love the instrument folks, but I just put the sound up next to my upright bass, and I laugh a lot inside.

Karen decided to strum every quarter note, giving it that jazz feel to go along with the classic chord progression. This idea gives the song a sense of credibility that Karen is trying to play off of. Great idea!

Her voice is the final instrument in this awesome song. She decided to balance on the edge of classy and hilarious. Perfect for the tune of course, as I’m sure you have heard by now.

Karen told me that she just couldn’t believe that whoever wrote this advert didn’t think that the animal costume was important. There was just so much to choose from out there in the big bad world and she thought they might be a little crazy. So the ideas started to flow.

She decided to start by seeing if she could get inside their brain.

“How do you choose a suit that will suit ya”

 “Lot’s to consider and I’m bettin’, to allow for heavy pettin.
And something with easy access”

And then she wondered where this encounter might happen.

 “Will the weather call for rain that day, probably”

 Now, let’s try and figure out which animal it might be. I’m not going to name them all, but there are some good ones. She did a wonderful job creating a flowing song, mixed in with awful and wonderful jokes. Some good ones…

 “Are a porcupine’s quills, the kind of pricks that give you thrills”

“Your ad didn’t say boy or girl, if you have nuts I’ll be a squirrel”

“If I play chicken we’ll be cursed to argue over who came first”

“A unicorn’s a tad cliche”

“Would you prefer the style of the dog”

 This is just a small taste of what Karen wrote. It’s hard for me to show all of the ridiculous beauty Karen has come up with for this tune. Please take a listen and enjoy!

You may find yourself looking for your own animal costume to solve this mystery for yourself.