{"title":"John Waters","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"john-waters_prayer-to-pasolini","title":"Prayer to Pasolini","description":"\u003cp\u003e“Prayer to Pasolini,” is John Waters' tribute to the legendarily controversial Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini. This digital release includes John’s “Prayer to Pasolini,” John speaking in tongues, and additional audio clips of John sharing his thoughts on Pasolini’s work.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe single was recorded at a small park in the wetlands near Rome’s airport, where a monument stands in Pasolini’s honor. It was here that Pasolini was run over multiple times with his own car by a hustler, after having his testicles deliberately crushed by his murderer. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe recordings were made with Waters’ long-time colleague and friend, Grammy-winning producer and author, Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Zomba Prison Project, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott). That it happened in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis only made it more surreal.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWaters and company arrived to find the site fenced and seemingly padlocked. Fortuitously, Brennan had bought wire-cutting tools just for the occasion, but they were ultimately not needed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs Brennan recorded industrial, wind, and bird sounds, John concentrated on the healing, nearly ironic religious experience of being there.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe area is industrialized, but remains potentially more primitive than during the Roman Empire era, when it acted as the main port. Some of its ruins still stand. During Pasolini’s neorealist heyday, prostitutes were drawn by the area’s remoteness. The prostitutes were nicknamed “fireflies,” for the image created as they puffed cigarettes in the dark.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWaters’ and Pasolini’s careers overlapped, with their most notorious films — Pink Flamingos and Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom, respectively — being released and banned in the first half of the 1970s, in large part for featuring scenes of actors eating shit. Waters says that the only difference was that in Pink Flamingos (which pre-dates Pasolini’s Salo by more than three-and-a-half years), Divine ate actual shit, while the Italian actors used chocolate.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“But I don’t hold it against them,” Waters quips.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"John Waters","offers":[{"title":"Digital","offer_id":39283355779168,"sku":"714246","price":5.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/johnwaters-singlesclub-4000x4000.jpg?v=1618859635"},{"product_id":"john-waters_its-in-the-book","title":"It's In The Book","description":"\u003cp\u003e“It’s In The Book” is Waters’ attempt to portray, in Waters’ words, Standley’s “persnickety, droll, intellectually superior comic monologue,” a part song, part exhortation on the subject of Little Bo-Peep in the manner of a revivalist preacher. The original version of “It’s In the Book” was a huge, surprise hit upon its release in 1952, rising to #1 on the Billboard chart and selling over 1-million copies.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIts follow-up, the nursery rhyme gone-wrong, comedy routine, “Proud New Father” (released the following year in 1953), would not fare as well– perhaps due to its gory details. Waters recounts, “It may be the first sick joke I heard as a child.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs in the original versions, the two Standley homages include gratuitous laugh tracks. Produced by Grammy-winner, Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, The Good Ones [Rwanda], poet Raymond Antrobus, Zomba Prison Project), Brennan states, “That recordings of dead people prompt living people to laugh is one of the more surreal aspects of recorded medium. That often identical canned laughter tracks have been used redundantly on countless albums and sitcoms for decades is all the eerier.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis single follows the release of Waters’ “Prayer to Pasolini,” his tribute to the legendarily controversial Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini, that was recorded by Waters and Brennan at Pasolini’s murder site on the outskirts of Rome. That single was released as part of the Sub Pop Singles Club Vol. 6 series on Waters’ 75th birthday, April 22nd, 2021.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWaters jokes that he chose to press the new single on gold vinyl so that he can at last be able to claim, “I’ve made a ‘Gold Record’.”\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"John Waters","offers":[{"title":"7 inch","offer_id":39574588784736,"sku":"715417","price":9.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":39574588817504,"sku":"715416","price":2.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/JohnWaters_ItsInTheBook_7Inch_MockUp.jpg?v=1758654001"},{"product_id":"john-waters_jingle-bells-its-a-punk-rock-christmas","title":"Jingle Bells \/ It's a Punk Rock Christmas","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe A-side single features a parody version of The Singing Dogs’ “Jingle Bells’,\" which takes the Christmas classic on a howling turn that should delight (and possibly dismay) dog owners everywhere. Meanwhile, the B-side, “It’s a Punk Rock Christmas,” is a raunchy spoken word yarn about the lack of the punk rock spirit during the anxiety-provoking season.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe new single was produced by Grammy-winner Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, The Good Ones [Rwanda], poet Raymond Antrobus, Parchman Prison Prayer) who produced all of Waters’ previous three singles. Brennan states, \"In producing John’s annual Christmas tour for over twenty years, it seemed almost negligent that he didn't have a Christmas record. Everyone from U2 to Justin Bieber to William Shatner to Bob Dylan does, and John’s wit couldn’t be a more fitting cheer for the annual holiday music canon.\"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"John Waters","offers":[{"title":"Signed","offer_id":41482660446304,"sku":"716610","price":9.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"7 inch","offer_id":41223623770208,"sku":"716617","price":9.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":41223623737440,"sku":"716616","price":2.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/files\/JohnWaters_JingleBells_MockUp_7in_2000x1417_8d1b530b-459e-4de8-97d5-797a871fce7b.jpg?v=1731022661"},{"product_id":"john-waters_john-waters-covers-little-cindy-b-w-a-pig-latin-visit-from-st-nicholas","title":"John Waters Covers ‘Little Cindy’ b\/w A Pig Latin Visit From St. Nicholas","description":"\u003cp\u003eFilmmaker, author, comedian, and cultural icon extraordinaire, John Waters, 79, returns with his second Christmas parody single (and third holiday single with Sub Pop), “John Waters covers ‘Little Cindy,’” produced again by his longtime friend and colleague, Grammy-winner, Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Parchman Prison Project, The Good Ones [Rwanda], Ramblin’ Jack Elliott).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWaters says, “In the tradition of novelty records, which I’ve always loved, this year I pay tribute to one of my favorite hymns that was once included in my ‘John Waters Christmas’ album – sung by the ever-holy child vocalist Little Cindy. I have never been in drag professionally, but with this little sticks-and-stones gift record to bad children everywhere, I channel Little Cindy’s voice and aura, even stumbling over the exact words she did on the original 45rpm version. Little Cindy is beyond saintly in my opinion, a minor miracle, a human spiritual sacrament who brings her devoted sanctity to this psalm of southern sentimentality. For a few vinyl minutes, I hope listeners will agree: John Waters IS Little Cindy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Side B is beyond the valley of gimmicks, over the top of parody and underneath the mountain of linguistics, recorded in Pig Latin – a secret dialect my mother taught me in the ‘50s. I don’t take easily to learning a new language but this maddeningly ugly way of speaking is a tongue I eventually licked. I even used Pig Latin in ‘Pink Flamingos’ where Divine’s family skipped, happily chanting, 'We Are The Filthiest People Alive.’ What better way to remind my public of this lunatic way of communication (even the Three Stooges spoke it in some of their 1930s movies) than to translate this beloved poem into a consonantly confused vernacular? ‘A Visit from St. Nick?’ As-tway E-thay Ight-nay Efore-bay Istmas-kray! See? I’m speaking in tongues! Want to clear your house of holiday party guests who have overstayed their welcome? Just play the flipside of this record, and they’ll run like they’ve just been teargassed! Ig-pay Atin-lay! Learn it, you little devils!”\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"John Waters","offers":[{"title":"Signed","offer_id":42372695261280,"sku":"717185","price":11.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Color 7 inch","offer_id":42310606553184,"sku":"717187","price":11.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":42310606520416,"sku":"717186","price":2.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/files\/JohnWaters_HBDJesus_MockUp_7Inch_US_2000x1417_5312673d-b0fc-4f0f-ab5a-694fe274cf74.jpg?v=1758571452"}],"url":"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/collections\/john-waters\/format-signed.oembed","provider":"Sub Pop Mega Mart","version":"1.0","type":"link"}