Many moons ago, back in Week 70, Jeza gave the thread a song week with a difference: a week with a single song at its heart, where each prompt was a single line. This week is going to work the same way. Jeza chose a song from Nobel semi-laureate Bob Dylan; I'm going classier and more relevant to the modern condition.

This week, your prompt will be a line of your (or my) choice from Beck's "Loser":


quote:

In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey
Butane in my veins and I'm out to cut the junkie
With the plastic eyeballs, spray-paint the vegetables
Dog food skulls with the beefcake pantyhose
Kill the headlights and put it in neutral
Stock car flaming with the loser in the cruise control
Baby's in Reno with the vitamin D
Got a couple of couches, sleep on the loveseat
Someone came in saying I'm insane to complain
About a shotgun wedding and a stain on my shirt
Don't believe everything that you breathe
You get a parking violation and a maggot on your sleeve
So shave your face with some mace in the dark
Saving all your food stamps and burning down the trailer park
Yo, cut it

Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Double barrel buckshot)
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me?

The forces of evil in a bozo nightmare
Ban all the music with the phony gas chamber
'Cause one's got a weasel and the other's got a flag
One's on the pole, shove the other in a bag
With the rerun shows and the cocaine nose-job
The daytime crap of the folksinger slob
He hung himself with a guitar string
A slab of turkey-neck and it's hanging from a pigeon wing
You can't get right if you can't relate
Trade the cash for the beat for the body for the hate
And my time is a piece of wax falling on a termite
Who's choking on the splinters

(Get crazy with the cheese whiz)

(Drive-by body pierce)

(Yo, bring it on down)

I'm a driver, I'm a winner
Things are gonna change, I can feel it

(I can't believe you)

(Sprechen Sie Deutsch, eh, baby?)

(Know what I'm sayin'?)


When you sign up, pick a line or ask me to pick one for you. Each line can only be picked once; if we somehow get more signups than we have lines, I'll double up, but for now, grab it or lose it.

To make this a little more fun, and because it's the new year and we need to start this with a positive jam, I have one more rule for you: your story this week should have a happy, hopeful, or otherwise positive ending. Bad things can happen, but there should be a light at the end of the tunnel. Please do not be ironic or otherwise cute about this. Just write happy. I know you can do it.

No erotica, fanfiction, topical politics/political screeds, Google Docs, archive-breaking coding, or dick pics.