Oh it's always someone else's fault

 

Oh it's always someone else's fault - (2009)    

Gary Bachlund

for medium voice and piano

 

Oh it's always someone else's fault
When I do just what I do.
The blame is clear; my somersault
Glues my blame direct to you.
        It's all you fault, and none is mine.
        The thought is just sublime.

Oh what I do, when I go wrong,
Is most surely all your fault.
It can't be mine; all faults belong
To some other's cracked Gestalt.

If you take no blame, it must be them
Who must then pay my fines.
It's really is quite the cleverest ploy
By which illogic shines.

Society is guilty, large and small,
For all the crimes I do.
It is they must pay, and prostrate fall
When e'er I give the cue.

Oh it's always someone else's fault
When I perpetrate some crime.
My sense is clear; this sweet assault
Paints others with my guilt-free grime.
        It's all you fault, and none is mine.
        The thought is just sublime.

Oh it's always someone else's fault....

Copyright © 2009 Gary Bachlund     All international rights reserved.

[ 4 pages, circa 2' 20" ]

Finger pointing

 

As the text notes, the purpose of this solipsism has served for centuries, enhanced by some popularized psychological notions over the last century, to affect politics and social issues worldwide. The one who can effectively assign fault to others in fact uses this argument, when accepted by the other party, as cue to "prostrate fall." It is unscientific, anti-legal and often intentionally illogical, and yet so vibrant an argument for some that it needs additional ridicule, though musical comedians like Anna Russell and Tom Lehrer have skewered with humor this stance in the recent past.

 

 

Clusters of diatonic seconds accompany portions of the text, and are reflected in the opening gesture's chromatic melodic seconds as well as spread apart by diatonic ninths as the faux dominant which introduces the first verse. The downward arch of the vocal line is mirrored by the upward arch of the accompaniment. Cadences are expressed in such clusters.

 

The middle strophes turn from duple to triple meter and from major to minor as this silly rationale builds its fallacious yet so contemporary argument that "society" is at fault, the tort lawyer argument which conquers individuals and organizations to make the few rich at the expense of the many. It is also the sociological argument in which "we" become rich, guilty, and the like. It is also the individual's argument -- modeled on the child's "hand caught in the cookie jar" complaint, "It wasn't me" -- which too many adults have seized upon to so easily and aggressively blame others for that which is so obviously and demonstrably an individual's responsibility.

 

 

The score is available as a free PDF download, though any major commercial performance or recording of the work is prohibited without prior arrangement with the composer. Click on the graphic below for this piano-vocal score.

 

Oh it's always someone else's fault