I reviewed the lyrics to Benevolesaurus Lex recently taking into consideration what has been happening in the world around us, and I felt like there might have been some mystical forces at play in the way those lyrics played out with respect to what happened after I wrote them.  Sometimes songs tend to write themselves, and use you as a vehicle, so for two reasons I decided that I would break down the lyrics from the writers perspective: 1. Because I think that it contains some powerful coincidences and 2. Because I feel like it would be useful for people to have a decoder ring from which to understand my lyrical style a bit better.  Sometimes I think its too esoteric and gets lost on people.

    So here it goes, check out the lyrics and the explanation, then review the circumstances that have popped up around you in the past couple of months and think about it in that context.


THE TITLE: the title is a pun which sets the tone of the songs content.  It is a pun built on three words, Benevolence, Tyrannosaurus Rex, and Lex.  The concept of Benevolence is that of good wishes or intentions.  Lex is the latin word for Law.  Tyrannosaurus Rex is obviously the most vile, wicked, and destructive dinosaur.  The purpose was to create a phrase that was basically a wicked, destructive dinosaur made out of "well intentioned" laws.  This is what I felt, two years ago, that the United States government had become.  A murderous, destructive dinosaur, a sortof Frankenstein monster of "well-intentioned" laws.

THE CHARACTERS: In many of my songs I pit several characters against each other and from the vocal position I take on the characters roles throughout the song.  Most reviewers have interpreted this as me being "schizophrenic", when in reality I just see the lyric and vocal expression in the song often as a vehicle to create interplay between characters to show a dynamic.  It isn't necessarily obvious in all songs, but generally, a sung part and a yelled part, or whatever, parts in different types of vocal styles represent different characters entirely, thats why their attitudes are contradictory or one line might contradict the next.  This song has four characters, the Prince, the Chorus(greek style chorus, as in the general public, or the people), the Princess, and the omniscient narrator.  The interplay between these characters is the dynamic of importance in the song.  The Prince is the vacuous, principle-less leader who uses strategies of governance to maintain power, the Chorus, or the people in this case, tend to be very confused and change opinions constantly.  The Princess was at the time(two years ago) the emerging female executive politician that didn't exist at the time, it was purely theoretical, and this was before Hillary Clinton's presidential run and Sarah Palin's V.P. nomination were even on the plate.  Strange.

I'm going to take this section-by-section.


}Since the prince got his new read
}We all forgot what he's made of
}And you must expect that the tools that got him here
}He'll still use to protect his wealth of influence
}And yet the means to lord your fingers
}With fear of your teeth might seem excessive
}"To throat the head of a mob
}You got a better idea?"

In this verse the Prince, whom I named Prince after Machiavelli, the sortof political theorist who defined secret tactics an authoritarian can use to manipulate the public, is shown as a user of what is considered to be "successful" political tactics, which include lying to the people, avoiding discussion of uncomfortable topics, manipulating political machinery to get elected.  The omniscient narrator reminds the listener that anyone who is successful using rhetorical tactics like this is obviously a student of Machiavelli and Strauss and thinking such as that, and definately cannot be trusted.  The Prince refutes this with "to throat the head of a mob, you got a better idea?", justifying his tactics by explaining that the social chaos that would result without his leadership would be worse than his tyranny.

}But if we catch him
}We'll still string him up

Here the Chorus, or the people, claim that if they find out that the leader is using these tactics, that they will kill him, despite the fact that they have to know that any successful executive leader in a nation the size of the United States, effectively an empire, has to use these tactics to be a leader.  Something I think people have now realized, causing a huge mistrust in government of that size,  A paradigm shift which I think has occurred literally this year, 2 years after me writing this song.

}He's calm, he's smooth
}His soft eyes, his warm smile
}His charm, composure
}He's our man

Here the Chorus, or the people, are smitten by the speaking style and superficial qualities like rhetorical ability of the Prince, and are championing him as their savior.  This won't last

}Guys, this thing feels fixed
}Can I have my money back
}There's little chance that we can win
}We didn't read the manual

This is the omniscient narrator, who is trying to remind everyone that the game of the moment is rigged, that there is no hope for creating a just ruler in a government of such Tyrannical size.  The "can I have my money back" speaks to the view that government is created in willing contract with the people, and that it is funded by the money of the speaker, who feels he is not getting a return on his investment anymore in the system, that he is being screwed.  The line "we didn't read the manual" was a reference to the Constitution, which had long been forgotten as Rule of Law.  At the time I did not realize that there would be a MASSIVE awakening in the people regarding Constitutional Law, which there has been now.  That makes me feel like this chorus might be more relatable now than it was when it was written.

}I've got a new ill now to fight
}It is my duty to champion
}And though it's only a shadow cast by him
}Who blocks the path of my view
}Of the light of the outcome
}and yet to feel the warmth and pulse
}And strength of a group
}Is worth the run off
}And when the energy dims
}I'll find a fresher ideal

Here the chorus and the Prince are agreeing to pursue some new trendy "lofty goal" in order to feel better about their condition.  They go into it knowing that it is not really the problem, and doesn't fundamentally address any real problem, but that it makes them feel good and allows them to bind together in community.  There is a self-admission that the real solution and problem are both obscured by the pursuit itself.  You can see this alive and well in the current public rhetoric on the economy...  Greed of wealthy men is the convenient political scapegoat to hide the true problem, the entire U.S. economy and political system is completely upside down in debt and everyone is going to have to live within their means.  Facing that is uncomfortable, so people flock to the idea of hanging one or two select CEO's out to dry, rather than kicking out the congressmen who blew 150 billion on Rum as an attempt to "bail out" the U.S. economy on the taxpayers dime.  This section also betrays the fact that the public will soon abandon this idea and latch onto something more timely when this one is proven false.

}It's so exciting
}I can't get enough

This is a dance-club song cliche, which I used to show the Chorus' excitement about this feel good plan.  Dance club song cliches are one of my favorite devices to show something as being trite or stupid in a characters line of thinking.

}He's cold, he's slick
}His blank gaze, his wry smile
}He lied, forget him
}Who's my man ?

Here the Chorus has realized that the Prince is manipulating them, and has turned against him.  They look to someone else for leadership, they evaluate the same rhetorical techniques which they loved him for a verse ago as manipulative and shady.

}That's what a sovereign's for
}You were dependent on me depending on your
}Welfare depends on me to survive
}The harsh climate of today is the time to join me
}Or fail in the eyes of your friends
}Give me your trust, I am your now

Here you get the Prince's rebuttal to the Chorus' claims that he is manipulative.  The rebuttal I made using Neuro-linguistic programming techniques, as an example of the type of manipulation mind-control tactics that leaders use to control crowds.  It uses "word interrupt", a technique where a word is railroaded over twice in meaning in the same sentence in order to create an understood meaning, and a subconscious meaning.  Your mind makes sense of the sentence, but your conscious mind does not.  The sentence "you were dependent on me depending on your welfare depends on me to survive" includes several imbedded suggestions that the Chorus is to be dependant on him.  He uses "Join me or fail in the eyes of your friends" to create a sense of social proof, that if you don't join him you will be unpopular.  He finishes the line with "give me your trust, I am your now!" as a command demanding subservience.  Generally when this passage is spoken in the song the meaning of all of it grazes past your subconscious mind, which is really neat to me.

}The princess wants the prince to let them go
}You know, if you have a kinder yoke to steer them
}You let her know
}She'll put his every pleasure in her ledger
}Balance the pain expense that remains
}Against his phallus

Here the omniscient character addresses the Princess, the Prince's sister, who becomes involved in the executive process after becoming angry with the Prince for abusing the people.  However, her attempt to revitalize the process with compassion quickly descends into vindictive acts of vengeance when she realizes that the tactics he used to control the people were the only ones that work in a Government that large.

}She's warm, her kind compassion
}She can't lead, she'll fail
}Forget her, where's our man

Here the chorus rejects the princesses leadership because they feel that she is too compassionate.  I assumed that this would be controversial and that people would try to "kill the messenger" on me because I was describing a sentiment that some mob of uneducated people hold, but luckily no one ever read this far into the lyrics.

}Time better spent making a sandwich    
                        
Here the omniscient character expresses frustration that the whole deal is an exercise in futility, and the song abruptly ends in the middle of what was the chorus in every other part of the song.       

I feel that what has happened recently with regard to American Empire and the public turn against it is very consistent with the feelings expressed in this song, which is strange because at the time I wrote it, all of these views were fringe or esoteric, now they are borderline mainstream.  The song is also far more commercial sounding now than it was two years ago, when it was an absolutely out there song that most would consider unlistenable.  It is for this reason that we have decided to re-highlight this song to bring attention to its new relevance.  Enjoy!