Murder City Challenge Entry 3
The third entry for this writing contest is by Nicholas Tozier of The Halted Clock and Good Aural.1 Where other entries stayed close to the source’s language, Tozier veered instead into an alley to ask “Who’s there?” With the song, Tozier says he was attempting “to invent a nightmarish city, viewed through a warped and paranoid perspective.” Here are the lyrics to his song, which is titled “Blood City Blues.”2
Blood City Blues
The pipes in this city are just long gun barrels
Can’t even run the faucet without tapping into somebody’s blood
Draining somebody you love
The light switches are wired to a long fuse under the ground;
You flick the wrong one, tomorrow night the building will fall.
The fuse runs long.
Down through the walls
Debt collector’s coming. Just a blind gloved hand and an arm
That parts the curtains of every window at once.
The palms turn up.
You know what he wants.
The mill down on the docks melts today’s murder weapons down
to weave barbed wire out of spilled blood and paranoia.3
1 Tozier also linked to the contest from his blog. The link was much appreciated, Tozier—many thanks.
2 I hope Tozier will send a link to the music sometime, too.
3 By the way, “Blood City Blues” is also the title of a short story about vampires published (and produced?) in Second Life. Second Life fiction! I had no idea such a genre even existed. I probably shouldn’t be surprised. Second Life is all fiction already, after all. (Going by the version on YouTube, the story is a dramatic monologue with more monologue than drama.)
Comments
July 11, 2011
Nicholas Tozier / Jul 11, 06:21 AM
I reasoned that I’d never been to Juarez, and I realized that I really didn’t have much hope of imagining the fear and terror that has unfortunately become the city’s fame. Such brutality—on such a regular basis—is surreal. More surreal than this lyric.
greg / Jul 11, 10:06 AM
I’m a little embarrassed that I cluttered up this post with that Second Life short story nonsense. But seriously y’all, watch the YouTube: how could I not?
greg / Jul 11, 10:12 AM
Ahem. Anyway, Tozier, it’s a neat song! I think Bowden’s book goes a long way to confirm your impression of the surreality of Juárez.
Will you write/have you written music for this?
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