Caustic Casanova Post “A Bailar Con Cuarentena” Video
Caustic Casanova bassist/vocalist Francis Beringer below cites the lyrics to the band’s new single, “A Bailar Con Cuarentena,” as perhaps his favorite ever, which even considering the rest of their upcoming LP, Glass Enclosed Nerve Center (out Oct. 7 on Magnetic Eye Records, set to stream here in full on Oct. 5) never mind their four prior albums and sundry other releases, is saying something. But yeah, it’s understandable. The band isn’t through the first verse before they’ve introduced the AutoZone Messiah and made fun of his mullet with bonus wordplay in substituting “piety” for “party,” toyed with language in multiple languages and established the setting for the song in the age of the titular pandemic quarantine.
Oh but there’s more. Consider the phonetic chicanery between “Logorrhea” and “lager,” a French pronunciation for “timbre” tossed in for good measure to make it work with “amber,” or the similar rhyme-plus pairing of “Appalachianese” and “ideology.” The gleefully weird, mundane-as-unfamiliar portrayed in the lines, “Another incantation from the half-mad cocatrice/Peaceful defenestration from the rock band name police,” and “defenestration” for “demonstration” there. The classic post-hardcore word swap of “seat”/”screen” codifying the awaiting if word and signal earlier. The sheer encapsulation of the era in “This news is big if true.” Shit that’s efficient. And the air of threat in the final part, where we meet and speak with the rattlesnake. Favorite or not, the attention to detail and composition in “A Bailar Con Cuarentena” is deeply, deeply admirable.
And the video is so perfectly odd. Animated by Jase Harper, with birds a plenty and some only-suitable headbanging, we see Beringer, drummer/vocalist Stefanie Zaenker and guitarist Jake Kimberley playing as a trio while remotely-located guitarist Andrew Yonki looks down as an angry sun. Heads are flowers, times are a tough and riffs are mighty. No, I’m not sick of telling you how good this record is. If I have any credibility at all after running this site for the last 13-plus years of my wretched life, please believe me when I tell you Glass Enclosed Nerve Center is something special from this band and not to be missed.
I had bothered Beringer a while back for the lyric sheet to go with the album, and seeing his note below, asked for permission to post the words to the song with the video. You’ll find them below, and so far as I know this is the first time they’ve been made public.
Enjoy the clip:
Caustic Casanova, “A Bailar Con Cuarentena” official video
Order now: http://lnk.spkr.media/caustic-casanova-2022
Directed and animated by Jase Harper (Jaseharper.com)
Videography and headbanging by Chris Joao
´A Bailar Con Cuarentena´, our first song with a title entirely en español, is one of the weirdest Caustic Casanova songs ever. It has a fairly interesting history. It’s the first Caustic Casanova song I’m aware of that started with lyrics first. I built the riffs around the words, and then altered the delivery of the words around Stefanie’s drum ideas. As a result of that intricate words-riffs-drums interplay the song is firing on all cylinders, rhythmically speaking, at every moment.
Stefanie initially didn’t like the song, and didn’t want to go through with finishing it, but I insisted that it would eventually be great if we pushed and pushed. During the pandemic we had a lot of time to work on it and hammer out its numerous difficulties. Stefanie harbored some concern that the tune wouldn’t be heavy, but when Jake got his hands on the bass and drum music after nearly a year of separation among us, he unleashed his crackling fuzz and octave-down fury all over it, turning it into one of the heaviest and most over the top Caustic Casanova songs ever, especially at the end. It’s easily the most challenging live song we’ve ever written — from a physical playing standpoint, it requires the entire band to be locked in and focused for every moment. The material is that demanding.
The lyrics were, at first, about something else (and the title was about dancing with a shark, not dancing with the quarantine). I never intended to write a song about the year 2020 and being stuck at home with an infectious disease panicking the shut-in multitudes. But so many lines that were written pre-pandemic seemed so strangely perfect for a pandemic era song that I eventually got rid of everything that didn’t fit with the theme and filled it out as the album’s “quarantine song.” In the end, it’s probably my favorite set of lyrics I’ve ever written.
The music video, another collaboration with our long time artist Jase Harper, is our first foray into animation and live action combined. It visually represents the fact that we’re sometimes a live trio, with Stefanie, Jake, and me, and sometimes a live four piece with Andrew. Since he lives in upstate New York and we’re in Maryland, we simply can’t get together as often as we’d like for shows and tours. In this video, Andrew plays a sun and moon god figure, a man trapped in a celestial body, desperately trying to re-assume his true human form and join his band for some riffs upon a jungle altar of madness. I never thought about this until just now, but it’s a good representation of all of us coming out of quarantine, learning to become real humans and functioning musicians and music fans again.
— Francis
Lyrics:
A Bailar Con Cuarentena
Words: Beringer
Music: Zaenker / Kimberley / Beringer
It’s business in the front, and piety in the back
The autozone messiah says come on in let’s have a snack
We’re grilling sacred cows, it’s conquistador cuisine
A bailar con quarantine urges our spanglish language magazine
Another incantation from the half-mad cocatrice
Peaceful defenestration from the rock band name police
We’re sipping mental champagne with the shut in multitudes
Meanwhile Satan lost your records in the hospital of doom
I am patiently and eagerly awaiting word from my captors, madam
We are patiently and eagerly awaiting some type of signal from your people, madam
This news is big if true
Something sinister’s sweeping through the people of this planet who aren’t you
Logorrhea’s soothing pace and timbre
Well the lager’s crisp, have a refreshing amber
And I’m glued to the seat by God again
Glued to the screen by God, amen! Amen!
In perfect appalaichanese
He said docs don’t know they spread disease
But with perfect ideology
It’s impossible to spread disease
Rattlesnake, rattlesnake why your teeth so white?
Been living in the bottom so damn long all I know how to do is bite
All I do is, all I do is, all I know how to do is bite
Caustic Casanova are:
Francis Beringer – Bass/Vocals
Stefanie Zaenker – Drums/Vocals
Andrew Yonki – Guitar
Jake Kimberley – Guitar
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Tags: Caustic Casanova, Caustic Casanova Glass Enclosed Nerve Center, Frederick, Glass Enclosed Nerve Center, Magnetic Eye Records, Maryland, Washington D.C.
