 Placebo - Without You I’m NothingI try to avoid looking up what albums and songs mean for the artists that wrote them. It gets in the way of my own creativity. With each line of lyrics, I like to have at least two different ways to hear them and let them turn through me and mix around with whatever I’m working on and whatever else I’m listening to. Without You I’m Nothing is one of the albums I listen to the most. It became my favourite album while I was at college studying media as the only girl in the class. I’d be picked on for my tastes and the boyfriend I was with at the time thought the music I listened to was too mainstream, so I hid behind a wall of black metal. College was also the first time someone tried to take my creativity away from me instead of encouraging it, taking away everything that made me, me and gift it back as a corruption of what once was. Placebo is still my favourite band, but this album was moved down to second most favourite album of all time during university. I’m not writing about my favourite album at this point in time as it is too close to Sparky the Spunky Robot’s release date (22 February 2019) and I don’t want to give any of the tricks in the narration away until people have a chance to read it and form their own opinions. I’m hoping Gingernuts of Horror will have me back at some future date to write about my favourite album and what impact it had on Sparky. Pure Morning “Our thoughts compressed, Which makes us blessed, And makes for stormy weather” To me, it sounds like enmeshment and a toxic relationship. What I’ve been working on right now, Era Two (or Tainted Love/Push the Button across my social media pages) is all about toxic relationships and there’s some enmeshment going on. Brick shithouse “When you come(cum) you never make a single sound” Even during the Dark Days, this particular lyric would come up when I was writing. It could be a sociopath or a peeping tom watching from the bushes or the doorframe in silence. Watching someone sleep. Someone zoning out during sex so they aren’t reacting. Someone never making a noise during sex. Someone gagged. There’s so much I can do with it and it can go in so many different directions. You Don’t Care About Us “You're too complicated, we should separate it You're just confiscating, you're exasperating This degeneration, mental masturbation Think I'll leave it all behind, save this bleeding heart of mine” Much like Pure Morning, it is hard to pinpoint an exact way in which You Don’t Care About Us has seeped into my writing. What first attracted me to Placebo was the way the lyrics fit so well together while still being simple words. Writing a song and writing a book are a bit different, but I do try to get my words to fit together like Placebo lyrics. 56 Seconds is the most noticeable. But even with Sparky the Spunky Robot, I wanted it to read really easily and then have the reader going back to see if there’s anything underneath it. Sometimes if I’m stuck on something, I’ll say these lyrics. Ask for Answers “These bonds are shackle free, wrapped in lust and lunacy. Tiny touch of jealousy, these bonds are shackle free” “Wrapped in…” must be one of the most common phrases I’ve been using in Era Two. Ask for Answers was the first thing I thought of when someone described what sounds like a very intense trauma bond to me. He presented this woman and apparently the love as of his life as someone who had been badly abused. And then said, there’s an undeniable bond. He didn’t describe anything positive about this woman. It was all bad things that happened to her at some point in the past and the more he said, the more toxic she sounded, as well as the people surrounding her (and him). They’ve got their children wrapped up in all of this, so they’re telling the next generation, “hey, be miserable and enmesh yourself in other people’s problems and be shallow”. But he could just walk away from it all. I did create the Tentacle Queen based on this (see Burger Queen below). Without You I’m Nothing “I'm unclean, a libertine And every time you vent your spleen I seem to lose the power of speech You're slipping slowly from my reach You grow me like an evergreen You've never seen the lonely me at all” I wanted to copy and paste all the lyrics. I love this song. It is one of my favourite songs of all time. I’ve gone with what flows the best. But the beginning may have had the most influence upon my work. This is not a concept I believe in, but it is something I enjoy exploring in writing. So many times, I have heard something along the lines of he/she/they complete me. People should be complete before they enter relationships. Era Two (Tainted Love/Push the Button) explores the incompletion. Marcy loses 56 seconds of her soul and the books and stories explore her trying to claw back each piece. Having her identity stolen by Kord so he could complete her, because she was whole at the start of Strip/Becoming. It is something I’ve experienced myself when people aren’t respecting my boundaries. They’re trying to take away something I had as a part of me and then replace it with what they say it should be. Nothing more than a shallow corruption of what once was. A large part of Era Two (Tainted Love/Push the Button) is healing from all of this, while clawing back my old levels of creativity. I’m no longer doing things for the sake of doing them like I was during the Dark Days when I churned out book and story after book and story at 5AM, often to a brief. I’m taking song lyrics and books and everything else and corrupting it in my own way and making it into something new, like I used to do. The people I speak to with this needing another half seem to rest their happiness on another person. Even if the other person is as close to perfect as can be, that’s a lot of pressure. This needing another person to feel complete is something I had pounded into me from childhood. It was one of the first things I set out to change while at university and in a pretty miserable relationship with that same college boyfriend mentioned earlier. Going out in the world, I discovered a lot of people hold firm to this belief. My writing in a post #metoo world has been exploring this and looking at all the ways relationships can and do turn toxic after lots of interactions with people and (now ex) partners with the point of view that everyone needs someone to complete them. Every time I have raised an objection to needing someone to complete me, I get silenced. This is the song that speaks to me the most on the album (and out of all the Placebo songs). And I like the general flow of the song. Allergic (to thoughts of Mother Earth) “Don't let me down” Everyone is going to let you down. At some point in Era Two, Faded Star is going to let Marcy down. Marcy is either in love with or idealises Faded Star. She isn’t sure. Love and lust are often mistaken for each other. But one story, and she’ll come for him in the night and carry him off to the Forest of the Dead. Because he’s only human. He can and will let people down, even if light does shine out of his arsehole. The Crawl “It's way too broke to fix No glue, no bag of tricks” Every relationship in Era Two is broken and traumatic. The characters themselves are broken, with Marcy and Donnie being the two that most operate in the grey areas of a somewhat balanced individual. Faded Star is too good (although I am trying to tone that down a bit). The Tentacle Queen and her minions are too evil and manipulative. Honey is an empty shell always glued to her phone or screaming inside Donnie’s head. There isn’t much middle ground in the characters mentality. These characters are too broken to fix. Every You Every Me “Carve your name into my arm Instead of stressed I lie here charmed 'Cause there's nothing else to do” This is one of X/Xanthe’s songs (“Theatrum Mortuum” in VSX and The Year’s Best Hardcore Horror 3), along with a few other Placebo songs. Including My Sweet Prince (although not as important as Post Blue from the Meds album or The Never-ending Why from Battle for the Sun). X/Xanthe was conceived while at the day job one icy Tuesday morning during the Dark Days. I had a deadline and no notebook with me so I found my morbidly obese goth arse trying to run down the street to get home. I was in a particularly foul mood about having to go to the day job. At some point I had tried to pick up the pieces of my life (I don’t know how much time had passed) by setting up a business. Setting up a business is stressful enough with the right support. During this time, I had a lot of negativity around me and people trying to strip away my identity and replace it with what they wanted me to be, right down to my son’s school. This was a pre #metoo world so phoning the police was never an option. I’m guessing my boyfriend at the time didn’t like me trying to regain some independence. The character basis for X/Xanthe is one of his friends. I thought she was my friend too, until she wanted to sleep with me while I was trying to set up this business and clutch back the pieces of my life. I’m straight and pretty prudish, but even if I wasn’t, that wouldn’t have been the time to do that. The boyfriend failed to grasp why I was upset and no longer wanted this person anywhere near me. I didn’t even have any words of comfort from him. I don’t really know how this song came to be associated with X/Xanthe, except it happened on that Tuesday morning. Theatrum Mortuum was called Sucker Love in the first draft. I’ve been working on another X/Xanthe story and novel, before I bring her back in Smothered Hope. I guess people like torture porn as she seems to be a reader favourite. “Carve your name into my arm”. In 56 Seconds, Honey has carved her name into Donnie’s mind, but he still can’t remember it. The song was playing when I added that part. I’m sure song has an impact on my writing without consciously thinking about it, like I did with Honey and X/Xanthe. My Sweet Prince “Me and the dragon can chase all the pain away” With X/Xanthe I viewed the Prince as being heroin. Once I had the heroin in place on that icy Tuesday morning, I had my story. X/Xanthe wakes up in the Forest of the Dead. She is dead. Does she still have an addiction in Theatrum Mortuum (Reprised)? Heroin plays a big part in some of the Era Two stories, at least in note form. I’ve written Tainted 07 (unpublished), a short story and the opening paragraph is used syringes. I grew up in the USA, but I haven’t been back since the heroin epidemic. There was a time at some point during the Dark Days where I was getting one or two phone calls or messages per day saying someone I grew up with or went to school with had passed away. Although I only lost one inner circle friend to heroin, it has an impact. There’s no poppies in the meadow in the Forest of the Dead. They’ve been used to manufacture heroin. Taking dragon as a literal mythical creature, the first story in Era Two is “The Last Human” and the theme for that anthology (Where There Are Dragons – an anthology of mixed emotions) was dragons. Since that first story, I’ve been trying to reference dragons in each (although I’m sure I’ve cut them out during editing in some of them). No dragon, then there’s heroin. Summer’s Gone “You try to break the mould Before you get too old You try to break the mould Before you die” Donnie, the washed-up deejay with two rings in his pocket. An engagement ring and a cock ring. Bound in trauma to the Tentacle Queen, he rides his white horse through the Forest of the Dead and licks the trees. I first introduce him in 56 Seconds as having a total lack of social skills and borderline rage dying on the sheets after sending jerk off footage to either Marcy or Honey. The rings themselves switch. The engagement ring is for Honey, the cock ring is for Marcy. The cock ring is for Honey, the engagement is for Marcy. He’s old and aging. Honey can step out of the cage inside his head for four seconds and erase the lines around his eyes with her thumb. He’s trapped in a 56 second drum loop and that carries over to other Era Two stories he appears in. Each time the horse dies, he starts to lick the tainted honey that oozes out of the trees. It is his own way of trying to break out and escape the same cycle he has been in. Scared of Girls “The earth did open Swallow whole” Darcy is swallowed by the Void and then she climbs back out again, past mass graves and disturbs the dead. The Child That Has Always Been is swallowed by the Forest of the Dead in The Daisies That Open at Midnight. The ground opens to swallow her body. “Her younger sister, had a blister Where I kissed her on her thigh” Love (cum) drips down Honey’s thigh. This is where that came from. Burger Queen “Things aren't what they seem Makes no sense at all” I reworded this song to be about the Tentacle Queen while being informed of someone’s ex-girlfriend (see Ask for Answers). She sounded just like every other ex-girlfriend described to me, toxic, yet infatuating. The bonds of trauma and lust are strong. Beloved by hundreds yet sounds like she cuts a sad figure like the person described in the song. He didn’t have anything positive to say about this woman. She sounds like she uses past trauma to manipulate people into feeling sorry for her, so she gets looked after (the vampire queen). The entire group of people associated sound like they’re bound together with trauma and emotional manipulation and one-upmanship (“out-narcing frenemies”, a phrase I used a lot in Strip/Becoming, which was written before I knew this group of people existed). When a large group of people is encouraging a disordered person to behave like that, instead of questioning their behaviour, it drags down the entire group. I’m not sure if there’s any medical or scientific backing for this, but if the disordered person is challenged, then maybe, that would give them the proverbial slap outside the head they need instead of dragging down everyone around them. The person who described this to me has flashes of intelligence and insight and even works a creative industries job. I try not to project my experiences onto other people after ten additional years of narcissistic abuse, but he basically described, without knowing what I’ve been through, what I’ve been trying to escape from. When I was wrapped up in all of that, I would get the occasional flashes of insight and creativity, but my personality had been so drained, these were becoming fewer and further apart. When I did finally get away, I was left very confused. My memories were disjointed. I don’t want anyone to experience what I have. It isn’t very nice. I’m going to be picking up the pieces for a few more years yet, until I have at the very least, the very practical things I require to properly move on. My stress levels vary to between post-traumatic to non-existent, with more around the non-existent or every day types of stress these days. This group of people described to me have children between them, which is where the Tentacle Queen’s children come from. The Child That Has Always Been is her own child. Donnie’s kidnapped daughter, so she’s wrapping Donnie’s child in her world and teaching her how to get what she wants by not lifting a finger (or hook in the children’s cases, she cuts off their hands so she can have their fingerbones for her necklace). She is in the middle of hatching a third (Caught on the Outside). She first appears in The Daisies That Open at Midnight. She owns Joyce and Kord, they both have the mark of a devil. She’s more than a devil. She is the Void. People like that are a void. They suck away life and happiness and anything positive about living and leave confusion and self-doubt behind, while making the person or persons on the receiving end believe they need that person in their life. In the Forest of the Dead, where The Daisies That Open at Midnight is set, illusions are washed away. I’m still writing it and having a vampiric land octopus played seriously is rather difficult. In other stories, she wears a mask to hide behind, which is what narcissists and people with other personality disorders do. To an extent, we all wear masks around certain people, but the Tentacle Queen has a latex mask. She’s the brothel owner between worlds. The place where men (and women) go when they want servicing by a sexbot. Creating the Tentacle Queen was the first time I used this song in my writing on any conscious level. Evil Dildo (the secret track). I don’t like this one as much as I like Black Market Blood, the secret track on Black Market Music. Once Burger Queen is over, I used to switch off the disc and then skip to the next track on my ipod. And then Spotify happened so if I listen to the album on Spotify, I usually end up with this song blasting in my ears. One day, it might play a role in my art or writing, but today is (probably) not that day.  Suitably labelled “The Queen of Filth”, extremist author Dani Brown’s style of dark and twisted writing and deeply disturbing stories has amassed a worrying sized cult following featuring horrifying tales such as “56 Seconds”, “Night of the Penguins” and the hugely popular “Ketamine Addicted Pandas”. Merging eroticism with horror, torture and other areas that most authors wouldn’t dare, each of Dani’s titles will crawl under your skin, burrow inside you, and make you question why you are coming back for more. Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Dani-Brown/e/B00MDGLYAY Facebook facebook.com/danibrownbooks Twitter @danibrownauthor Instagram dani_brown_author Website danibrownqueenoffilth.weebly.com Sparky the Spunky Robot  Suburban Hell is covered in lawn decorations. Not every house has a garden shed. Not everyone is ready to leave their dreams in the sheds. Failed popstar Matthew wakes up every night to go out to the garden shed and jerk off over his keytar. He can only cover her in spunk once per month. She might break otherwise. That’s why he built Sparky. One night, Sparky comes to life. He doesn’t have a voice. To find one, he breaks into garden sheds leaving their contents out in the open for the neighbours to see. And 56 Seconds because it is mentioned a lot. Love/lust dead on the sheets. Gone in 56 seconds of self-pleasure carried through the WiFi connection. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1726074544/   Comments are closed.
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