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March 29, 2024, 02:48:21 PM

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Ricky Gervais's After Life series 3 [split topic]

Started by Cursus, July 23, 2020, 09:33:21 PM

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SpiderChrist

Quote from: kalowski on December 04, 2021, 08:42:53 AMWhen I was young I asked my dad
Why being poor didn't make him sad

That's as far as I made it, 20 or so seconds. You could kind of tell it wasn't going to improve.

Ferris

Quote from: SpiderChrist on December 05, 2021, 08:25:02 AMThat's as far as I made it, 20 or so seconds. You could kind of tell it wasn't going to improve.

If anything, it went downhill.

QDRPHNC

That must have been nice to for his dad.

"Hey dad, you're really poor. Why aren't you sad? If I was poor like you I'd be sad."

Ferris

I'll point out that you missed off the question mark which is in the YouTube transcript.

...and that's another thing - what music video has lyrics at the bottom? It's like they were proud and wanted you to witness their incredible lyricism.

Ferris

"Lines on your woman's face made from smiles" doesn't make sense, does it? Made by smiles, I suppose, maybe? That would take 5 seconds to correct and redraft but nobody in the creative/writing/recording process bothered to think about what they were doing.

No idea why he's so pleased about it all - if you offered me a songwriting credit on this I'd run a mile. I think he's just a shameless self-publicist and at any moment believes completely whatever he's saying. Derke is the best thing I've ever made, I'm proud of having written this song, people definitely wanted that new David Brent film 20 years after the fact.

Quote from: QDRPHNC on December 05, 2021, 01:11:30 PM"Hey dad, you're really poor. Why aren't you sad? If I was poor like you I'd be sad."

The is the phone call he's been getting from his son at 3am for the last 15 years.
Manic cackling and then he slams down the receiver.
He phones all his friends from school and his old work colleagues as well, then he turns to his wife and says "I'm leaving it all to the dogs, just so you know. Night, night"

TommyTurnips

Quote from: Ferris on December 05, 2021, 01:21:44 PM"Lines on your woman's face made from smiles" doesn't make sense, does it? Made by smiles, I suppose, maybe? That would take 5 seconds to correct and redraft but nobody in the creative/writing/recording process bothered to think about what they were doing.

No idea why he's so pleased about it all - if you offered me a songwriting credit on this I'd run a mile. I think he's just a shameless self-publicist and at any moment believes completely whatever he's saying. Derke is the best thing I've ever made, I'm proud of having written this song, people definitely wanted that new David Brent film 20 years after the fact.

I think that nowadays Ricky has enough fame, influence and money that he can sink into his own productions which are essentially just vanity projects that he can buy his way into having complete creative control over. With no one like Steve Merchant around to say things like "um, I don't think it's a good idea to make a show about a kind person and a sex pest in a nursing home, Rick" he can hire a bunch of yes men who will produce and edit his projects without ever questioning his methods. This is how we end up with "lines that were made from smiles" and other hacky shit.

Mr Faineant

Perhaps he just likes making money, and thick people like him, will give him their money, and there's fucking loads of them. He can get the coins rolling in with minimal effort...can't blame him really. If I had only bad ideas (I do) and people would pay me for them (they won't), I'd sell too.

Ferris

...but would you go gushing to the Mail about pouring your heart into such the musical equivalent of wood mulch? I think I'd keep my head down, count the cheques, and hope like fuck nobody ever puts 2 and 2 together re: the output being complete shit.

idunnosomename

Quote from: Ferris on December 04, 2021, 07:15:32 PMIt's like the "before" sample in a songwriting class and to my ear uses the same F/C/Am/G structure as FreeLove Freeway (with an E7 every so often to mix it up) though I don't care enough to watch it again or get a guitar to check.

it really does sound like some cunt on an acoustic guitar has written it and some poor bod has to give it a big sappy grandiose orchestration. it's definitely got Am-G as the big hook (and it is in C as you guess)

H-O-W-L

I think ultimately Gervais is proof that money can buy you everything but quality itself.

olliebean

A friend of mine who directs comedy shows once told me about a sketch troupe who would occasionally come up with ideas like, "Let's end this sketch by doing a shit on the stage." His job, he told me, was to say to them, "OK, instead of that, maybe let's work on this other really good idea we had."

That was essentially Merchant's job with Gervais, wasn't it?

dead-ced-dead

Quote from: olliebean on December 06, 2021, 08:19:37 AMA friend of mine who directs comedy shows once told me about a sketch troupe who would occasionally come up with ideas like, "Let's end this sketch by doing a shit on the stage." His job, he told me, was to say to them, "OK, instead of that, maybe let's work on this other really good idea we had."

That was essentially Merchant's job with Gervais, wasn't it?

After Fighting With My Family and The Outlaws, neither of which are perfect but are competently made and have a basic understanding of the basics of screenwriting, it's very apparent this is the case.

BritishHobo

It's also very interesting to see the huge gulf between the attitudes to non-white-straight-able-bodied people in their work. Merchant has shown an eagerness to platform diverse casts without drawing attention to it, while Gervais remains obsessed with "ironically" pointing out any difference at exhausting length. It struck me while watching The Outlaws that never in a million years would Gervais have a cast of characters of such varied backgrounds, and actually explore those backgrounds in a sincere way. They would just be there as stock figures for somebody to embarrass themselves in front of. Even the character arc with Darren Boyd is light-years ahead of anything Gervais could manage.

dissolute ocelot

Quote from: Jumblegraws on December 04, 2021, 07:51:12 PMI've said before that I think Gervais's writing process for Derek and After Life is to write a piss-take of something mawkish and then try to kick it into sincere shape. It's just all so shallow, inauthentic and (in the case of Derek) hilariously at odds with its own tone at times.

This song has me absolutely convinced of my hypothesis.
I assume that when he was working on Extras, as well as When The Whistle Blows he actually wrote all these other terrible sitcoms in the expectation he'd use them in Extras series 3 and 4. Then he had a horrible realization.

The "never count the money/count the lines" thing is extraordinary. If you have to spend 2 more lines explaining what you're talking about for the sake of having such a pedestrian antithesis in the first 2 lines, maybe try something else. Count the smiles or tears, I don't know. That sort of thing is classic bad songwriting parody though: get the rhyme first and then spend the rest of the verse trying to make it into a coherent thought.


Ferris

Just remembered this verse in the shower and had a right good chuckle.

Quote(Oh) and never count your money
Just count the lines
Around the eyes of your woman
That were made from smiles

Midas


Chollis

i can't wrap my head around those lyrics, is it really being played completely straight? i've never watched any After Life.

Video Game Fan 2000

Quote from: kalowski on December 04, 2021, 08:42:53 AMWhen I was young I asked my dad
Why being poor didn't make him sad

Kier Starmer is screaming at his speech writer for not coming up with this first.

Hat FM

i'm not going to put myself through listening to the song but i really hope that this is david brent appearing as a pop star on afterlife.

Mr Faineant

Quote from: Ferris on December 05, 2021, 09:27:22 PM...but would you go gushing to the Mail about pouring your heart into such the musical equivalent of wood mulch? I think I'd keep my head down, count the cheques, and hope like fuck nobody ever puts 2 and 2 together re: the output being complete shit.

Yeah there's no accounting for that. He's just a cunt, that's all I can think of.

seimaj

Gawd. Minute 01.13 reminds me of the French and Saunders parody of an Abba video, with Dawn as Frida doing the exact same thing.

The staring at the cancer boy is also just.......beyond parody.

Jumblegraws

Quote from: kalowski on December 04, 2021, 08:42:53 AMWhen I was young I asked my dad
Why being poor didn't make him sad
I hope I'm not the only one who immediately thought of a certain sectarian Rangers song upon hearing those opening lines

Noodle Lizard

I'm struggling to think of another song which almost entirely consists of oblique rhymes ("near rhyme" sounds too generous, as they're not even close). It's such a frustrating thing to listen to. It reminds me of when you'd learn a new technique in English Lit and then everyone's next creative writing assignment would just be back-to-back pathetic fallacies or whatever it was. The difference here is that I think it comes from pure laziness more than experimenting with the form.

Cuellar

Quote from: seimaj on December 06, 2021, 05:27:16 PMThe staring at the cancer boy is also just.......beyond parody.

Possibly my favourite bit. Sharing a joke with him maybe, smiling, then serious face, 'ah, he does have cancer though, shame'

jobotic

#386
Quote from: Jumblegraws on December 06, 2021, 05:34:58 PMI hope I'm not the only one who immediately thought of a certain sectarian Rangers song upon hearing those opening lines

Not quite but I am thinking

My old man
Said be a kindly man
I said fuck off bollocks you're a cunt

The Mollusk

Quote from: Cuellar on December 06, 2021, 07:19:51 PMPossibly my favourite bit. Sharing a joke with him maybe, smiling, then serious face, 'ah, he does have cancer though, shame'

Sad look down... Brave little smile.

Captain Z

Quote from: kalowski on December 04, 2021, 08:42:53 AMWhen I was young I asked my dad
Why being poor didn't make him sad

And noooooooow
The miracle is mine

turnstyle

I can't stop thinking about this.

It's like getting a cancer diagnosis, but you're keen to embrace the sweet relief of death.