charles douglas - track by track # 5 good luck

GOOD LUCK:

“Good Luck” I think came out pretty well. I knew when I wrote the line “Big money, big prizes, fame comes in different sizes” that it would be my epitaph. I stole some lines from an old videogame called “Smash TV” in which an animated figure pops out before each level and says, “Good luck… you’ll need it! Big money! Big prizes!” To me, those always sounded like amazing lyrics instead of inane videogame banter. I was trying to write a song that sounded just like Prince, but of course this sounds nothing like Prince. I think some good luck is what everyone needs. When I was recording this, I kept looking over at Moe Tucker, because I was thinking, “Yeah, she’s really famous to people who care about good music, but to everyone else she’s just some random middle-aged woman who smokes a lot.” The nature of fame is so confounding. When I was 21 in New York City, I really craved and wanted fame—not so I could bask in it, but so I could throw it away like it was meaningless. The people I admire most are like Scott Walker or Lindsay Lohan, who have all this fame and talent, and then they throw it in the trash bin to prove they don’t need it. I do sometimes sit and daydream about Lindsay Lohan making an album produced by Scott Walker. She can’t sing at all, but I bet he could come up with some interesting arrangements for her. Michael Haneke should make a movie starring those two, with Scott Walker as her father. And the plot could involve heavy incest. Scott still looks good. Very youthful, I think. Although I feel that much of his looks came from his head of hair, which he no longer has. Perhaps Steve Albini could engineer Scott Walker & Lindsay Lohan’s album, and they could cover Serge Gainsbourg tunes. If I ran a major record label, this is the kind of endeavor that I’d pursue, instead of trying to sign new bands.