Tim Minchin: So Live (2007) - full transcript

Pendant le filmage de ce spectacle,
c'est ici que se trouvait l'entracte.
Maintenant que c'est un DVD, il n'y a plus besoin d'entracte
puisque l'invention du bouton pause les a rendu obsol?tes.

Mais si vous voulez une tasse de th?, autant la faire maintenant.
Sinon, attendez une petite seconde, parce que Tim va revenir.

Ah, le voil?.

Thank you.

Thank you.

This is a song I wrote, uh...

on the morning after I got married,

to my wife.

We?ve got years ahead of us

We?ve got people who care for us

Yeah, we?ve got Sunday morning coffees in the sun



We?ve got Monday night television

Yeah, we?ve got years of happiness

We?ve got decades of laughter ahead

Yeah, we?ve got Christmases with family by the sea

We?ve got wine and vintage cheddar

Yeah, I have everything a man could ever want

And all I?ll ever need is you

Cos nothing can stop us now

Only the good times left

Nothing can stop our love

Except terminal illness

Or sudden accidental death

Thank you very much.

Never gets a huge laugh, that one.



Well I wake up in the morning at 11:47 and I can?t believe I have to face

the horror of another fucking day

And the magnificent magnitude of my morning erection

merely mocks me like the sun in its optimistic greeting of the day

Managing to manifest a modicum of motivation

I meander to the kitchen make a mission out of mixing Nescafe

But the milk is going off and coffee by itself is bitter

and there?s ants all through the sugar and the supermarket?s miles a-fucking-way

My life is pretty sad

But I know that I should be glad.

I could be a starving Ethiope

Or a policeman in Bagdad

policeman in Bagdad

Bagdad

At 11:53 I instigate the day?s ablutions

in the hope my constitution can be altered by some action on the bowel

But the total non-existence of colonic animation seems to me the perfect metaphor

for the utter constipation of my soul

By 11:59 I have decided that my life would be immediately improved

by a carefully written list of short-term goals

But by 12.05 my list consists of 1-dot put some pants on,

2-dot go to the shop, buy some prunes and Panadol

My life is pretty shit

But I know I shouldn?t whinge about it

I could be a Palestinian
Driving buses on the Gaza strip

Yeah how bad can it be?

Some people have it worse than me

I could be a Ipswitch prostitute
Or Gary Glitter?s family

I have no right to cry
Some people have it worse than I

I could be a thalidomide kid
With something in my eye

something in my eye

my eye

At 12:30 I realise I?m feeling so dejected

that I?ve totally neglected the beginning of the Jerry Springer show

So I settle on the sofa try to focus an iota of

my motor-neurones on the brilliant insights for which Jerry is known

And although on any other day a show entitled ?Midgets Midget Midgets?

would excite me like a virgin at her year eleven ball

Today those little jelly-wresting fellas fail to free me of my misery

instead they simply serve to make me feel three foot tall

But how bad can it be?
Some people have it worse than me

I could be a junior life saver on a
Banderachi beach

Or a woman in Afghanistan

Or a Jew in the Klu Klux Klan

Or the architect of the World Trade Centre

Or a bobcat driver in Bam Iran

I could have my identity mistaken
As a bomber in an underground station

Or I could be a peace-loving speech-writer

In George W?s administration

Yeah you know that I don?t have the right

To be unhappy with my life

I could be Hitler?s mother
Or Shane Warne?s wife

And I know that I shouldn?t be bitchin
I could be in a worse position

I could be a 3-nippled naturopath
In the days of the Spanish in, the Spanish inquisition

You know I have no right, no right to cry
Some people have it much, much worse than I

I could have a serious nut allergy

And be shipwrecked on an island with a crate of Snickers bars

A jar of Nutella and a fresh baked pecan

pie

Some people have it worse than I

So, yes, I'm, um ...

I'm married. I got married at 26.
I got married quite young.

I've been with the same woman for ... ages.

In fact- This is another little personal thing, but um,

I say- I'm telling you cos it's quite
uncommon these days,

In my generation, anyway.
I actually lost my virginity

to the woman I ended up marrying.

It's not quite as sad as it sounds.

But it's pretty fucking close to that.

We're both in our thirties now,
and one of the things that

happens, if anyone's in a long-term relationship,
and you haven't got kids yet,

when you hit 30,

The pressure to have kids just --

And it's ridiculous, because
30's just a number, you know?

How do you know that, suddenly, you hit 30,
and you're suddenly endowed with all the

attributes a parent needs, you know,
like selflessness, and ...

And, like, when I hit 30, I remember

An example : my thirtiest birthday diner,
I remember,

the sort of stuff we were talking about,
the main conversation on my birthday diner was

about what our last words would be.

We all thought it was really important to have
really kick-ass final words. Just in case, you know,

we died sooner than we thought.
We wanted to make sure we had something really good locked in.

And ...
And all I could come up with was

'Who's the world gonna revolve around now?'

That's kinda where I was at.

And it's ridiculous, cos this pressure to have kids,

you think- You'd expect it from your parents,
and from the-

the ticking of your biological clock,
or whatever, but-

But the main pressure is good old-fashioned
peer pressure, you know?

Like, what you got smoking for, in your teens.

Because all your mates are having kids,
and you feel like 'Oh, not part of the cool club anymore.

I should have a human too.'

And it's ridic-
Cos,

Here you are at 30, suffering peer pressure.
And it's worse than ever,

mostly, I think, because of
digital technologies.

Because all my friends had cool little digital cameras,
cos they're so cheap and accessible these days,

and they're very proud, so it takes many photos,
and they're 'Oh, look!

There's absolutly not limit to the number of photos I can take!

And I have broad-band internet, you know,
digital technology. And so, every morning,

I wake up and, there, sure enough,
attached to an e-mail, is

another 10x8-high resolution-colour
photograph of another

fucking miracle, you know ...

And, eventually, it wears you down.

It breaks you, these photos.

You know?
And you find yourself having this ...

inevitable conversation that you thought
you'd never have. You know the one.

'What are we wainting for?' You know?
'It's never gonna be the right time.'

'It's always gonna be tough,
it's always gonna be financially difficult, but,

Why don't we just do it?

Why don't we just buy a digital camera?'

So, we did. We did, we bought one!

And, soon after, almost, it seems,
as a result, we had a child.

It's something about biology I don't understand,
but, uh ...

She's great, I've got a baby.
She's 5 months now, she's really tiny.

It seems she's, um ...

largely our responsibility.

One of the things that having a kid, um,

stops you doing is having
a lot of sex.

Initially because the toilet bits
aren't working very well.

It's very- It's quite traumatic

on the- on the-
on the, uh, toilet bits.

But, um-

I should say 'toilet bits' a few more times.

That is in general usage, isn't it ?

You do all call your genitals
your 'toilet bits', don't you ?

Don't tell me I've made a horrible faux-pas!

Turns out that only I call them my toilet bits.

Anyway!

The other reason-

The other reason you don't have sex
is just cos your focuses change.

But I wanna tell you a story because it actually happened,
unlike most of the crap that I talk about on stage.

I was away doing a few shows,
and my wife and my child were in Melbourne.

And when you're whiles away
from a child, suddenly there's sort of-

My sexual-self re-arose and I thought,
"Oh, I should- I should, you know, maybe

start a little bit of flirting with my wife,
in the hopes that when I get back to Melbourne,

we'll just hop straight back on."
You know.

So I thought- Being a poet,
I chose a text message as my ...

as my missive of choice, and I sent her
a message saying : "I love you

in a sexy way."

That'll work!

And, um, she sent me one back
almost immediatly that said:

"The baby just vomited in my mouth."

So, uh,

that was fine, you know,

I got the message,

went home and cried while I masturbated.

Speaking of sex,

as I want to do a lot at the moment,

one of the things that actually-
If you're in a really long-term relationship,

like, um, increasingly,

for me, anyway,
as I get on in this relationship,

I find myself getting more and more sexually

uh, paranoid.

Not with my wife,
we're totally fine,

appart from the drought.

But, um,

what I worry about,
is if I ever had to perform

sexually with another woman.

Like, with someone else.
If I had to be sexual with someone else,

like, if something happened to my marriage, like,

if my wife

died

in an accident, or something.

Sorry, that's-

I don't find that funny,
that's just my bad sense of humor.

I do understand that that's
"That should be her last words!"

Yeah! She's not borrowing my
fucking last words, I tell you that.

If she dies in an accident,
she'll think of her own.

And, anyway, that wouldn't make sense,
because it revolves around me.

I shouldn't say that sort of stuff about my wife.

Even if she didn't die,
even if she, like,

got a degenarative disease, and

I decided that, rather than look after her myself,
I should put her in a home,

so that I could move on with my life-

These things happen, you have to plan
for them, that's all I'm saying.

And when I'm planning for this stuff,

and I consider having sex with another woman,

um, what I-
What

I get paranoid about is:

how do I know if

what I'm doing

sexually, at the moment,

um, is normal?

Cos, as far as I understand,
my wife and I have a perfectly [?] sort of

sexual relationship. But you never know,
cos we've been together for a really long time,

we might have just

sort of

just drifted,

drifted from the norm.

Just bits by bits,
so we didn't notice.

I've got this scenario,
I play out in my head, where

I'm out with a new girl, and, uh,

and we're having a great time, and

I don't know, we're at a bar or something,
we've had a few drinks, and maybe it's our third date, it

really doesn't matter. But, um,

The bar closes, and

I pluck up the courage to ask her back
to my place, and she says yes, so

we go back to my place,
and I pour some more drinks, and

put on some music, and
some lamps.

And then, obviously, we actually
end up on the couch, and

we kiss, and, uh,

a little bit on with the jumper action, uh,
it's heavy petting, and then,

passion overwhelmes us,
so we stumble to the bedroom,

tearing off each other's clothes, and

I get out the Mickey Mouse ears,
and I length the bungee rope, and

obviously, the Hungr Hungry Hippos.

And all of a sudden,
out of nowhere, she's like

What are you doing?

Huh?

I- I-

I thought we were just going to make love!

Yeah?

Why don't you just
put all that stuff away, just

for a minute, just put it down,
and come over here

and,

just touch me.

Touch you?

Before you've pissed in the hippos?

I don't know what kind of
weird shit you're into, lady,

but if you don't piss in the hippos,

how do you know who surfs first?

If you really loved me

the way you say you do

If you love me half
as much as I love you

You would pluck a planet from the sky

You?d use a star to dot the ?i?

In I love you?

that is what you?d do

You?d take a dreary sky
and you would paint it blue

If you loved me unconditionally

These are the things
that you would do for me

Because I need you

Like a fish needs the sea

Like a fire needs oxygen

Like a flower needs a bee

And if you really cared for me

You?d let me video you while you wee

Standing up in the bath,

I shouldn?t even have to ask

Perhaps you?ll even store a little more in a flask

These are just the things that people do

When their love for one another is true

We go together

Like a cracker and Brie

Like racism and ignorance

Like bling and R&B

But if you really want to show you care

You?d let me wear your underwear

When we visit your mum,

it's a bit of harmless fun

I just like talking about your childhood
with some lace between my buns

There?s no reason for a big to-do

If your love for one another is true

We go together

Like a bird and a nest

Like Internet and porn

Like guns and the US

And if you love me like you say you do

You?d purchase forty cockatoos

And teach them to fly?

in formation in the sky

And shit the words ?Tim is God? on my ex-girlfriend?s Hyundai

Sure, it might be easier with doves

But shirking challenges is not what love

Is all about

Love is not all wine and roses

Sometimes it?s handcuffs and cheese

No-one said love is for free

And if you agree with that

You?d sing passages from the Coran
wearing nothing but a Bob the Builder hat

To the tune of waltzing Matilda

I just love the combination of Islam, nationalism and builder

builder

Yeah, Islam

nationalism

And a little-bitty builder

Yeah, I fucking love it.

Yeah, Islam

And Bob the fucking Builder!

Bob the fucking Builder!

Because I need you

Like a tick needs a tock

Like bananas need pyjamas

Like a nun needs cock

And if you want to put your love for me first

You wouldn?t go through childbirth

You?d agree to adopt

so that you could stay thin

We?ll get a Chinese kid, it could teach us Mandarin

And communists don?t make as much noise

And they?re really good at sharing their toys

Because I dig you

Like an Aussie digs pies

Like Born-Agains dig Jesus

Like Jesus dug guys

And if you love me just a modicum

You'd [?] of my perineum

Stick a finger up my bum

As I'm about to come

I've heard it's quite acceptable
and reasonably fun

Not that I'm saying that I want you to

But, hypothetically, it's something you might do

If you loved me unconditionally

Like letting me video you

while you wee

Assuming there?s nothing worth watching on TV

I'll tell you, um,

uh, Palestine, eh?

Things are really bad up there.

The Muslim and the Jewish people
don't seem to get along very well in

Israel and Palestine.

It's the craziness of the circular
nature of the violence,

like, every act of violence
is just revenge

for a previous act, and in turn
we get another act, and, uh ...

And it's hard to imagine how
there's ever gonna be a lasting peace

in the region, you know,
because

of the circular, the self-
perpetuating nature of the violence, and

I was thinking about this the
other day, and I thought

Maybe- maybe the solution's
not gonna be

one of these huge solutions that, sort of

[?] in the papers each day,
and maybe it won't a military intervention or ...

-god forbid- or a geographical thing,
or a diplomatic solution.

But maybe- maybe what

it's gonna be is,
like, a seed.

Like maybe, maybe
peace has to come

from a peace-seed.

That's, like-
Someone plants in the region,

and it grows

into a,
like a

tree of peace.

With branches that

reach out over the whole
region, over both

Israel and Palestine,
shadowing it with its peace

branches.

It's a metaphor!

Anyway, I was thinking about this.

I was thinking about this,and I thought : Maybe!

Maybe this seed, like, maybe,

all they need is a really good peace-anthem.

So I've taken the liberty
of penning a little something, and, uh,

and I thought it would be wise to
bouce it off a relatively impartial crowd,

here, in my home country,
before I actually pop over there,

and start basking
on the Gaza strip.

So this is my peace-anthem
for Palestine. Obviously,

being an anthem, there'll be opportunity,
towards the end, for you to

sing along.

If you know the words.

We don't eat pigs,

You don't eat pigs,

It seems it's been that way forever

So if you don't eat pigs,

And we don't eat pigs,

Why not, not eat pigs together?

Pigs.

We don't eat pigs,
You don't eat pigs,

It seems it's been that way forever

So if you don't eat pigs,
And we don't eat pigs,

Why not, not eat pigs together, together?

Pigs.

Pigs.

Pigs.

We don't eat pigs,

What, wha-

Wait, wait, wait, ?

We don't eat pigs,

You don't eat pigs,

It seems it's been that way forever
Sing!

So if you don't eat pigs,

And we don't eat pigs,

Why not, not eat pigs together, why not?

Why not, not eat pigs together?

One more time!

Why not, not eat pigs together, why not?

Rock!

You know how in, um,

Hollywood Mills & Boon
novels and stuff,

there's this myth
perpetuated that, uh,

that, uh, love

should happen at first sight.

Or that, if it does, it's more
valuable or something, and

I've written a love song to,
sort of, redress that.

Well, it's a nice song, it's-

cos it reminds me that love
creeps up on you, you know? And, uh,

Sometimes, when you're least expecting it.

Often when you don't really want it.

So, um, this is a ...

This is a love song

about that creepy-uppy kinda love.

You grew on me

like a tumour

And you spread through me
like malignant melanoma

And now you?re in my heart

I should?ve cut you out back at the start

Now I?m afraid
there?s no cure for me

No dose of emotional
chemotherapy

Can halt my pathetic decline

I should?ve had you removed
back when you were benign

I picked you up

like a virus

Like

meningococcal meningitis

Now I can?t feel my legs

When you?re around
I can?t get out of bed

I?ve left it too late to risk an operation

I know there?s no hope

of a clean amputation

The successful removal of you

Would probably kill me too

You grew on me like carcinoma

Crept up on me like untreated glaucoma

Now I find it hard to see

This untreated dose of you has blinded me

I should?ve consulted my local physician

I?m stuck now forever with this tunnel vision

My periphery is screwed

Wherever I look now,
all I see is you

When we first met
you seemed fickle and shallow

But my armour was no match
for your poison arrow

You are wedged inside my breast

If I tried to pull you out now
I might bleed to death

I?m feeling short of breath

You grew on me like a tumour

And you spread through me

like malignant melanoma

I guess I never knew

How fast

a little mole can grow

on

you

Tell you something,

I worry, um,

because

I"m just about playing my last song, and-

You want me to stop now?

That's, um-
I meant, I meant-

That was a little joke about me interpreting that as
"Oh, don't play your last song."

But what it sounds like "Do you want me
to stop now?", like a teacher.

I didn't mean, like- I mean the first one,
the low status one, not the high status one.

I worry that because-

because a lot of my songs

are sort of a little bit comic,
or, like a little bit

light-hearted,

that, um, that,

that people are gonna leave my show

thinking that I lack depth.

And I don't, I don't want that.

So, to relay that fear,
I always finish on this song.

Which I've written in the key
of C sharp Minor.

See what I'm saying?

And to kind of add to this

sense of

profundity created by the key,

I tend to change the lights as well.
Paul, have you got those, um,

those, uh,

reds.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying, like a-

And with this lighting state,
combined with minor key,

I think, mostly people leave my show,

hopefully having had a good time
and everything, but also thinking

"Yeah, that guy is really deep."

So this is a, uh-

This is a song called 'Dark Side'.

And, uh,

I'll see you at the other end.

I can have a dark side

If you want me to

I can have a dark side

I can develop my brooding potential

If pain?s what you want in an act

Pain I can do

I can have a dark side too

I can have a dark side

too

Hey!

Yeah!

I called my girlfriend up on the phone

I said, ?Hey g-girlfriend what?s g-going wrong??

She said, ?I?m breaking it off with you

?I feel as if the ma-ma-magic has gone?

I said, ?Hey baby what?re you talking about?

?I thought that everything was just fine?

She said, ?That?s exactly the point

?I just get so annoyed how you?re so happy all the time

?I need somebody deeper than you

?Someone with a little third-dimension?

I said,

Well, I can have a dark side

If you want me to

I can have a dark side

I can develop my brooding potential

If pain?s what you want in a man

Pain I can do

I can have a dark side too

I can have a dark side

I can have a dark side

I can have a dark side

Hey!

I wrote a letter to Mr Sony

Said, ?Hey S-sony what?s g-going down?

?I?ve got a record and I reckon it?s wicked

?And I th-think you should s-spread it around?

He said, ?Hey Tim, I quite like your work

He said ?It?s clever and quirky

?But I promise you this

?You could be clever as Voltaire

?But it won?t get you nowhere

?If you wanna sell discs

?Clever never made no one rich

?It doesn?t appeal to the teenage market

?The teenage market!?

Well, I can have a dark side

If you want me to

I can have a dark side

I can reveal my tortured internals

If pain?s what you want in an act

Pain I can do

I can have a dark side too

I can have a dark side too

Daddy never came to my ball games

Where are you daddy?

Daddy never came to my ball games

He never loved me

Daddy never came to my ball games

Daddy never came

Daddy never came to my ball games

Daddy never came

Daddy never came to my ball games

Daddy never came

And I,

I can have a dark side

If you want me to

If you want me to

And I,

I can have a dark side

If you want me to

I can have a dark side too

I,

I can have a dark side
If you want me to

Yeah, I can have one
If you want me to

Yeah I,

I can have a dark side
If you want me to

Rock!

Thank you.
Because of your very positive reaction,

I'm gonna do one more song.

If your reaction had have been less positive,

I would have had to think of another reason.

Hey,

You know that feeling,
I think we all get that feeling sometimes,

this feeling-

You know that feeling you
get when you feel like

you're the smallest
doll in a Babooshka doll?

This is a song about that.

This is my Earth

And I live in it

It?s one third dirt

And two thirds water

And it rotates and
revolves through space

At rather an impressive pace

And never even messes up my hair

And here?s the really weird thing

The force created by its spin

Is the force that stops
the chaos flooding in

This is my Earth

And it?s fine

It?s where I spend the vast
majority of my time

It?s not perfect

But it?s mine

It?s not perfect

This is my country

And I live in it

It?s pretty big

And nice to walk on

And the bloke who runs my country

Has built a demagoguery

And tought us to be fearful and boring

And the weirdest thing is that he is

Conservative of politics

But really rather radical of eyebrow

This is my country

And it?s fine

It?s where I spend the vast
majority of my time

It?s not perfect

But it?s mine

It?s not perfect

This is my house

And I live in it

It?s made of cracks

And photographs

We rent it off a guy

who bought it from a guy

Who bought it from a guy

Whose grandad left it to him

And the weirdest thing is that this house

Has locks to keep the baddies out

But they?re mostly used
to lock ourselves in

This is my house

And it?s fine

It?s where I spend the vast
majority of my time

It?s not perfect

But it?s mine

It?s not perfect

But it's mine

This is my body

And I live in it

It?s 31

And 6 months old

It?s changed a lot since it was new

It?s done stuff it wasn?t built to do

I often try to fill it up with wine

And the weirdest thing about it is

I spend so much time hating it

But it never says a bad word about me

This is my body

And it?s fine

It?s where I spend the vast
majority of my time

It?s not perfect

But it?s mine

It?s not perfect

This is my brain

And I live in it

It?s made of love

And bad song lyrics

It?s tucked away behind my eyes

Where all my fucked up thoughts can hide

Cos God forbid I hurt somebody

And the weirdest thing about a mind

Is that every answer that you find

Is the basis of a brand new

clich?

This is my brain

And it?s fine

It?s where I spend the vast
majority of my time

It?s not perfect

But it?s mine

It?s not perfect

But it?s mine

It?s not perfect

I?m not quite sure I?ve worked out
how to work it

It?s not perfect

But it?s mine