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about
This is the B side to 'The Ballad of Norma Bates (My Strange Little Boy).'
This is the complete letter Norma (the mother) recites from the grave to her psychopathic son Norman Bates - from the Hitchcock film 'Psycho.'
It is written from an alternative perspective that perhaps Norma was actually a good mother, and wasn't to blame for her son's psychopathic behaviour. Many real life psychopaths have mental illness that cannot be 'blamed' on the parents (genetic or environment). It can be argued that Hitchocock was a misogynist; that many of his female characters are the negative cause.
The orchestral style film score was written with a nod to Bernard Herrmann (film composer of 'Psycho' and other Hitchcock scores) with a little tongue in cheek to other horror genre composers. It includes prepared piano, string effects, the Dies Irae theme with sung latin cantations! ;-)
Portions of this letter, along with some elements of the orchestral score formed a spring board for the A Side, which lead to a wonderful equal part collaboration with Middle Aged Lady, and D.Ni.L for Musication. Check it out on Bandcamp et al.
The proceeds from both the A and B side will be going to the SANE Mental Health Charity based in the UK: www.sane.org
To help us make more money for our charity, please consider downloading our music from our website, as Bandcamp take a larger commission. Thank you :-) www.flipsidebride.net
lyrics
My darling Norman,
Ever since you were a baby you would always demand my attention. You never let me put you down in your cot and would scream and scream until you were blue in the face, so I’d have to pick you up and cuddle you. I moved your cot into my room, but even then you only settled when I finally lay you down next to me in my bed. You looked so peaceful and angelic when you were asleep – like a sweet little cherub. But as soon as I got up out of bed the next morning, you would wake up with that strange look on your face and scream bloody murder!
When you started walking, you’d cling to the back of my skirt and follow me around like my own little shadow. I tried to encourage you to make some friends but you never seemed interested. You only ever wanted to play with me, not Daddy. In fact your favourite game was to play dress up in all my clothes! I rather hoped you would settle down in school, but you kept begging me not to send you there because you hated the girls. Did you hate them really? The teachers said you were very quiet and detached, as if you were in your own little world.
Then when Daddy died, you became even more possessive of me. You wouldn’t let me see my friends and you hated it when any of them came round to visit me. You would get very jealous and angry. You would try to find anything sharp in the house to throw at the birds from your bedroom window! You hit one of them once and killed it, do you remember? I found it in the bathroom covered in blood.
When we moved and bought the motel, you seemed happier at first. You liked helping me see to the guests, but would never eat with them at the dinner table. You preferred to eat in the parlour. That’s where I found more of your dead birds - not covered in blood this time, but with their gruesome body parts sewn back in using my needle and thread. You said it was because you wanted to learn taxidermy of all things, so I bought you some books for your 13th birthday.
Later on when I met Joe, you became very aggressive. Joe was a good kind man and would have looked after the both of us. I thought you would feel less anxious knowing that you didn’t have to keep protecting me all the time. All I ever wanted for you Norman was to be a normal teenager, have a normal life - get a girlfriend, see the world, do normal things. But then I came to realize, despite everything I tried to do for you – you were always going to be my strange little boy.
I loved you very much my darling, even right to the end.
We are Manic Pianic & Essex Aid (a songwriter/producer duo) and we write stylistically varied original alternative songs
called #AudioPopArt. Our debut album 'Welcome to Audio Pop Art' raises money for 3 UK charities. Our new cover/parody 'I Quite Like Mondays' raises money for The Pudz Animal Sanctuary. Please visit www.flipsidebride.net to purchase via Paypal as more money is raised this way....more
'Who Killed Amanda Palmer' and the self-titled 'Dresden Dolls' inspired the very first song I wrote for this album called 'The Merry-Go-Round' - punk cabaret, with lyrics inspired by George Orwell. Flipside Bride
With their blend of playfulness and graduate-level instrumentation, Dorcha deftly prove that improvisational zeal and conservatory-level precision aren't mutually exclusive. Bandcamp Album of the Day Nov 16, 2020