If You're Not Famous at Fourteen, You're Finished

"If You're Not Famous At Fourteen, You're Finished"
Song by TISM from the album De RigueurMortis
Released 2001
Recorded 2000
TISM Mobile Recording Unit
Genre Alternative rock
Length 2:53
Label FMR/genre b.goode
Writer TISM
Producer TISM

"If You're Not Famous At Fourteen, You're Finished" is a song by TISM released off De RigueurMortis (2001). It was the only single off the album to have a video. Though some believe the song to be about Nikki Webster, the band have said it isn't, but is more about the appearance of young stars "the costume designer has attempted to create some kind of weird, freaky, sexy bimbette out of someone who is so quintessentially the class dobber."

It was intended to be a commercial CD single, with 2Pot Screama, a 41-minute rock opera, as the B-side, but the single was cancelled and deleted, however promotional one-track CDs of the single were sent to radio stations. 2Pot Screama was later released as a bonus CD with the limited "Connoisseur's Edition" of De Rigueurmortis.

Song

The song was written by TISM.[1] It opens with an audio recording of the Countdown theme song, over which a voice over reads "Hello Australia and welcome to Countdown, I'm Gavin Wood and here's TISM!", as would have been introduced on the television show. The song begins at this introduction and focuses initially on what makes a person skilled; however, it quickly dismisses this line due to the interest in the skilled person fading at the age of fourteen.

The song then goes on to detail all the things a child should be able to do before the age of fourteen, or earlier, in order to become a star. If the child cannot do these things, it is said, it's the parents fault for not raising them correctly.

The song then comments, finally, that the age a star traditionally faded was at twenty one. Which then dropped to eighteen, and now it is, as the title suggests, the age of fourteen.

Video

The video features young school-age children in what appears to be an audition. Over the top of the audio come the voice over of TISM vocalists, Ron Hitler-Barassi and Humphrey B. Flaubert who comment on how dismal the children are at whatever it is they are doing and idly wonder what else they could watch on another television station. At one stage they get fed up and fast-forward the video. Finally, at the end of the song, they decide to switch over to SBS.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "'If You're Not Famous at Fourteen, You're Finished' at APRA search engine". Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA). Retrieved 28 February 2013.