BIFF Countdown - End of the World!

End of the World (1962) by Skeeter Davis - Sixteen weeks until BIFF

Mary Frances Penick (December 30, 1931 – September 19, 2004), better known as Skeeter Davis, was an American country music singer best known for her crossover pop music songs.

In this tear-jerker ballad, the end of the world is strictly metaphorical. But truthfully if the world were actually ending, could Skeeter Davis have sounded any sadder?. The opening lines are apocalyptic poetry: "Why does the sun go on shining? Why does the sea rush to shore? Don't they know it's the end of the world?"

Skeeter Davis goes on to wonder why the birds go on singing and ends with a heartbreaking sigh of "I can't understand how life goes on the way it does." I think that I might get a little bummed out if this song isn't playing when the Rapture comes.

End of the World by Skeeter Davis

Why does the sun go on shining
Why does the sea rush to shore
Don't they know it's the end of the world
'Cause you don't love me any more

Why do the birds go on singing
Why do the stars glow above
Don't they know it's the end of the world
It ended when I lost your love

I wake up in the morning and I wonder
Why everything's the same as it was
I can't understand, no, I can't understand
How life goes on the way it does

Why does my heart go on beating
Why do these eyes of mine cry
Don't they know it's the end of the world
It ended when you said goodbye

Why does my heart go on beating
Why do these eyes of mine cry
Don't they know it's the end of the world
It ended when you said goodbye

BIFF Musical Countdown - Seventeen Weeks Until the Eighteenth Annual BIFF

Counting down to the Bicknell International Film Festival, July 20 - 21, 2012. Reminder that there is time to plan, develop and create an original video and enter the BIFF Independent Film Contest. Check out the guidelines and enter. Now on to this week's music:

Symphony Of Destruction by Megadeth

Megadeth is a heavy metal band from Los Angeles. Formed in 1983, they along with Metallica, Slayer, and Anthrax are recognized for developing the thrash metal sub-genre whose songs typically use fast percussive tempos and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead guitar work. Song lyrics often deal with social issues. So it is with this song - their most successful hit single from the 1992 album, Countdown to Extinction. Penned by vocalist and frontman Dave Mustaine, the song explores the hypothetical situation where an average citizen might be placed into a position where they can run the country while the public is led like puppets by a phantom government. The politician is assassinated causing anarchy and riots to ensue.

Symphony Of Destruction (1992) by Megadeth

You take a mortal man

And put him in control

Watch him become a god

Watch people's heads a'roll

A'roll

A'roll . . . . . . .

Just like the Pied Piper

Led rats through the streets

We dance like marionettes

Swaying to the symphony

Of destruction

Walking like a robot

Its metal brain corrodes

You try to take its pulse

Before the head explodes

Explodes

Explodes . . . . .

Just like the Pied Piper

Led rats through the streets

We dance like marionettes

Swaying to the symphony

Just like the Pied Piper

Led rats through the streets

We dance like marionettes

Swaying to the symphony

Swaying to the symphony

Of destruction

The earth starts to rumble

World powers fall

A'warring for the heavens

A peaceful man stands tall

A'tall

A'tall . . . . . . .

Just like the Pied Piper

Led rats through the streets

We dance like marionettes

Swaying to the symphony

Just like the Pied Piper

Led rats through the streets

We dance like marionettes

Swaying to the symphony

Swaying to the symphony

Of destruction

Eighteen Weeks To Go . . .

Written by Dave Matthews and Glen Bullard (keyboard, piano), never has the end of the world sounded so breezy, as in When the World Ends. The Dave Matthews Band sings in a laidback manner, “When the world ends, we’ll be burning one…” Matthews seems to assure that as long as he’s got his acoustic guitar, sandals and his 'baby' close by - - the transitions should be smooth and mellow!

When the World Ends (2001) by Dave Matthews Band

When the world ends

Collect your things

You're coming with me

When the world ends

You buckle up yourself with me

Watch it as the stars disappear to nothing

The day the world is over

We'll be lying in bed

I'ma rock you like a baby when the cities fall

We will rise as the buildings crumble

Float there and watch it all

Amidst the burning, we'll be churning

You know, love will be our wings

The passion rises up from the ashes

When the world ends

When the world ends

You're gonna come with me

We're going to be crazy

Like a river bends

We're going to float

Through the criss cross of the mountains

Watch them fade to nothing

When the world ends

You know that's what's happening now

I'm going to be there with you somehow, oh...

I'ma tie you up like a baby in a carriage car

Your legs don't work cause you want me so

You just lie spread to the wall

The love you got is surely

All the love that I would ever need

I'ma take you by my side

And love you tall, 'til the world ends

Oh, but don't you worry about a thing

No, 'cause I got you here with me

Don't you worry about it

Just you and me

Floating through the empty, empty

Just you and me

Oh, graces

Oh, grace

Oh, when the world ends

We'll be burning one

When the world ends

We'll be sweet makin' love

Oh, you know when the world ends

I'm going to take you aside and say

Let's watch it fade away, fade away

And the world's done

Ours just begun

It's done

Ours just begun

We're gonna dive into the emptiness

We'll be swimming

I'm going to walk you down the pathless roads

I'm going to take you to the top of the mountain that's no longer there

I'm going to take you to bed and love you, I swear

Like the end is near

I'm going to take you up to

I'm going to take you down on you

I'm going to hold you like an angel, angel

I'ma love you

I'ma love you

When the world ends

I'ma hold you

When the world is over

We'll just begin...

Musical Countdown - Nineteen Weeks 'til BIFF

1999 by Prince
Drumroll - - Twenty weeks left until the Bicknell International Film Festival. It was the early Eighties when you first heard this song, and you thought that 1999 was so far away. The funkiest apocalyptic rocker of them all, Prince (Prince Roger Nelson) hit the streets and set the world's expiration date a little early - - two thousand zero zero (Remember 'He was dreamin' when he wrote this). Solution? No problem, party like it's 1999.

Prince shares the vocal lead with Dez Dickerson, Lisa Coleman and J.J. (Jill Jones) with 1999, a protest against nuclear proliferation. 

I was dreamin' when I wrote this

Forgive me if it goes astray

But when I woke up this mornin'

Coulda sworn it was judgment day

The sky was all purple, 

there were people runnin' everywhere

Tryin' to run from the destruction, 

U know I didn't even care

CHORUS

say say two thousand zero zero party over, 

oops out of time

So tonight I'm gonna party like it's 1999

I was dreamin' when I wrote this

So sue me if I go to fast

But life is just a party, and parties weren't meant to last

War is all around us, my mind says prepare to fight

So if I gotta die I'm gonna listen to my body tonight

CHORUS

say say two thousand zero zero party over, 

oops out of time

So tonight I'm gonna party like it's 1999

Lemme tell ya somethin'

If U didn't come to party, 

don't bother knockin' on my door

I got a lion in my pocket, 

and baby he's ready to roar

Yeah, everybody's got a bomb, 

we could all die any day

But before I'll let that happen, 

I'll dance my life away

Oh, they say 

two thousand zero zero party over, 

oops out of time

So tonight I'm gonna party like it's 1999

say we're out of time

say two thousand zero zero party over, 

oops out of time

So tonight I'm gonna party like it's 1999

1999

Dont ya wanna go

1999

Dont ya wanna go

1999

We could all die anyway

1999

I don't want to die

I rather dance my life away

Week Twenty of the Countdown to BIFF

The BIFF Countdown Continues . . .
This weeks choice, "99 Red Balloons", was suggested by Mr. BIFF himself - -  that is Tory Davis (Owner and operator of The Wayne Theater). It is just about the most fun tune that one can find about nuclear war.

Nena's real name is Gabriela Kerner and prior to forming her own group, she was a member of a band called The Stripes. In 1981 she and a boyfriend moved to West Berlin and there formed her band, Nena. Guitarist, Carlo Karges, got the idea for this song from seeing balloons being released at a Rolling Stones concert. He wrote the lyrics and Nena's keyboard player, Uwe Fahrenkrog-Peterson, wrote the music. Of course the original version was in German: 99 Luftballoons (1983).

The story song tells of Nena and the listener purchasing 99 balloons in a shop and letting them go up into the sky. The balloons show up on radar as unidentified objects, and both the Soviets and West Germany scramble planes, go to full alert, and prepare to counteract a perceived nuclear attack! Remember at that time the Cold War was still in place (The Berlin Wall did not fall until Nov. 1989), and West Germans were living in the shadow of weapons pointing east and west, weapons built-up between the Soviet Union and NATO.

Frankly it’s fun to dance to the unknown when facing apocalyptic war, right? 

99 Red Balloons (1984) by Nena

You and I in a little toy shop
Buy a bag of balloons with the money we've got
Set them free at the break of dawn
Til one by one, they were gone
Back at base bugs in the software
Flash the message, something's out there
Floating in the summer sky
99 red balloons go by

99 red balloons
Floating in the summer sky
Panic bells it's red alert
There's something here from somewhere else
The war machine springs to life
Opens up one eager eye
Focusing it on the sky as 99 red balloons go by

99 Decision street
99 ministers meet
To worry, worry, super scurry
Call the troops out in a hurry
This is what we've waited for
This is it boys, this is war
The president is on the line
As 99 red balloons go by

99 knights of the air
Ride super high tech jet fighters
Everyone's a super hero
Everyone's a Captain Kirk
With orders to identify
To clarify, and classify
Scramble in the summer sky
99 red balloons go by

99 dreams I have had
In every one a red balloon
It's all over and I'm standing pretty
In this dust that was a city
If I could find a souvenir
Just to prove the world was here
And here is a red balloon
I think of you, and let it go