Roughly Enforcing Nostalgia, Moshe EP the Plunderphonic Power Pop Band of Chicago

  Reaching Our End
  (3:34) [Fall/1994]
For my little brother Joel & my big brother Jeffrey.
  MP3
  Liner Notes

[What a year! What a class!
I’ve known idiots before, but at least they were polite.
They stayed in their seats. In their corners . . .
I pity France in ten years!]

Listen to me, Joel, my brother, listen up
& I’ll tell you this loud and clear:
Let’s not end up like the guys
That are hanging around Down Here.
I’ve seen them at my favorite shopping malls
& chilling at the Ice-Ki-Mo,
Riding around in their brand new flannels
& listening to the Q Radio.

They’re interesting people,
Interesting times,
But they’re elongated figures,
They’re just elongated lines

(Interesting
Interesting times
Elongated
Elongated lines.)

When they first started popping up all over the place,
I said, “At least I know there’s more like me.”
But it was pretty obvious after awhile
That they considered it just something to do for a while
‘Cause they’d always been on
The winning side of the team
& never been unpopular a day in their lives it seemed.
They asked me all about my favorite shows,
& then told me that I wasn’t cool enough to go

Anymore, anymore.
They’re interesting people,
Interesting times,
But they’re elongated figures,
They’re just elongated lines

(Interesting
Interesting times
Elongated
Elongated lines.)

We say, “We want peace, please, but no police
We wanna be dissident, but not too weird!”
We say, “We wanna change the world
But first we wanna get away
With all the shit our parents used to do.”
But I didn’t want to be a target audience;
I just wanted more than anything to feel acceptance,
& I wish you could’ve been here
When we started this thing,
‘Cause I don’t feel I belong anymore than I did

Five years ago.
Five hundred tears ago.
Four hundred
Blows ago.

(These interesting times
Are reaching their end;
These interesting people
Are almost out of friends.)

[If only he had wanted to confide in us.
Do you think when we speak to him he’s there?
Do you think he’s listening now?
God knows what goes on in his head.]

& my fondest wish is that you & I, Joel,
Could just take off until they all blow away,
But there’s really no point in trying
‘Cause the lunatics run the asylum for now.
& I wish I could’ve known them better
Before this whole big stinking trend,
When they were all huge Vanilla Ice fans
& they were beating up all my friends.
I guess you could say that they’re

Interesting people, Interesting times, But they’re elongated figures, They’re just elongated designs. They’re interesting people, Interesting times. They’re just elongated rhythms, They’re just elongated rhymes.	(Interesting Reaching Our End Elongated Reaching Our End Interesting times Reaching Our End Elongated lines Reaching Our End.)
[“Reaching Our End” written by Joel Frieders & Roughly Enforcing Nostalgia, Why Won’t The Durned Thing Play Music ASCAP, 1998]

Being the fourth incarnation of a song we wrote nearly a decade ago, we only half-jokingly call this the “Obsessive/Compulsive Remix”. They say you spend the rest of your life trying to recreate the first thing you wrote, & while we’ve written far more polished songs since, this one’s message is as pointed as ever.

Kevin Murray - Drums & Background Vox / John “Cheez” Miller - Bass Guitar / Mark Nicholson - Lead & Rhythm Guitars

François Truffaut & Marcel Moussey - The 400 Blows (Spoken by Guy Decomble & Albert Rémy)