Not Perfect: More Tim Minchin

I've been listening to/searching out Tim's stuff now since Tuesday, and so far I've found multiple things I really like, and nothing that I dislike. And here's the problem: all the good stuff, it's really really good. So good that I would like to learn to play it/sing it. (I guess that isn't a problem). But (here comes the problem), I can't. I mean, I'm not a 31 year old married Australian. Other awesome artists with moving love songs and the like have the decency to make it either really specfiic, but clearly as "story", or super universal. Not Tim, oh no, Tim wants to make it all about him, him, him. Selfish bastard, I want to make it all about ME, ME, ME. But now I can't. So you'll just have to listen to "Not Perfect" by Tim Minchin as played by him instead of as played by me because he's a selfish jerk.

[Tim Minchin, sitting at piano speaking into mic]: This feeling, you know that feeling you get when you feel like you’re the smallest [gestures to self] doll in a babushka doll?
[Audience Laughs, Tim Minchin gives meaningful look]
This is a song about that.
[Starts playing piano chording slowly]
[Singing]: This is my Earth and I live in it.
It’s one third dirt and two thirds water.
And it rotates and revolves through space, at rather an impressive pace, and never even messes up my hair. [Some audience giggles]
[Tim look as though he just thought of something] And here’s the really weird thing: the force created by its spin is the force that stops the chaos flooding in.

This is my Earth, and it’s fine.
It’s where I spend the vast majority of my time.
It’s not perfect but it’s mine.
It’s not perfect.

This is my country, and I live in it.
It’s pretty big and nice to walk on.
And the bloke who runs my country has built a demagoguery and taught us to be fearful and [sung with derision] boring. [Applause]
And the weirdest thing is that he is conservative of politics, but really rather radical of eyebrow. [Laughter and applause]

This is my country and it’s fine.
It’s where I spend the vast majority of my time.
It’s not perfect but it’s mine.
It’s not perfect.

This is my house and I live in it.
It’s made of cracks and photographs.
We rent it off a guy who bought it from a guy, who bought it from a guy, [audience laughter] whose granddad left it to him.
[Tim looks like he’s mentally searching for lyrics] And the weirdest thing is that this house has locks to keep the baddies out but they’re mostly used to lock ourselves in.

This is my house and it’s fine.
It’s where I spend the vast majority of my time.
It’s not perfect but it’s mine.
It’s not perfect but it's mine.

This is my body and I live in it.
It’s 31 and 6 months old.
It’s changed a lot since it was new, it’s done stuff it wasn’t built to do [audience laughter]: I often try to fill it up with wine. [audience laughter]
And the weirdest thing about it is: I spend so much time hating it but it never says a bad word about me.

This is my body and it’s fine.
It’s where I spend the vast majority of my time.
It’s not perfect but it’s mine.
It’s not perfect.

This is my brain [audience laughter][Tim sings high pitched] and I live in it.
It’s made of love and bad song lyrics [ashamedly sung]. [audience laughter]
It’s tucked away behind my eyes where all my fucked up thoughts can hide, ‘cos God forbid I hurt somebody.
And the weirdest thing about a mind: is that every answer that you find is the basis of a brand new cliché. [audience chuckles]

This is my brain and it’s fine.
It’s where I spend the vast majority of my time.
It’s not perfect but it’s mine.
It’s not perfect but it’s mine.
It’s not perfect, I’m not quite sure I’ve worked out how to work it.
It’s not perfect but it’s mine.
[close up on Tim playing outro]
[Applause]
[Spoken]: Thank you.
[Bows]

as always, as complete a transcript as I can make

There are just so many things to love about this song:
Every time I hear him sing about the "force created by the spin" of earth, it makes me wonder yet again at how crazily lucky it is that life even exists, let alone you and me*.
When he sings about Australia, you can tell that he really cares about his country and wants to see it get better, and seeing that reflected in his lyrics about the "locks to keep the baddies out" that are "mostly used to lock ourselves in" is just wonderful as well.
I think anyone who's grown up in our body-shaming culture can relate to the body verse, and at least for this person with depression: I really felt connected with the pressing need to try to protect people from myself.



Hmmm, maybe with a good U.S. related re-write of the country bit I could perform this myself. It might just be worth it.


*which has been helped along considerably by the fact that I am currently reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins wherein he talks briefly about all the exact little things that went into creating this planet that is suitable for carbon based life, of which there are a considerable number, (and that doesn't mean I think this was "designed" for us. As, uh, (thanks yingyang)someone whose name I can't remember Douglas Adams said, that'd be like a puddle looking at it's place in the world and saying "wow, I sure fit in this here puddle quite nicely, it must mean that it was MADE for me", which I think we can all get the humor of quite well without an explanation of).