Non sequiturs have risen to prominence in this country. You can find them everywhere, whether in the names of rock bands, in the comic pages, in political speeches or even in your own home. It might be a sign of our Attention Deficit Disorder-afflicted culture’s need for cheap, disposable entertainment, or the information age need to convey as many ideas in the least space possible. As a political statement “Damn the predicate” just doesn’t have the same kick as “Damn the Man,” but why fight the zeitgeist? If this is the direction the culture is going, why not just make the best of it?
I find it interesting that the group that has most fully seized on this trend is emo bands. There seems to be nothing that those sensitive young men like more than a self-sufficient sentence, and though I have become increasingly bored with the trappings of that genre, I must admit that they’ve crafted quite a few clever non sequiturs. A few of my favorites: Texas is the Reason, Drive Like Jehu, Boy Sets Fire and I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness. I’m sure that not all of these groups are technically “emo,” so if you feel insulted by their inclusion here, let me just admit now that you are much smarter and better-endowed than I am. Good, now we can move on.
For all-time best non sequitur usage by a rock group, it’s hard to beat the Liars. These snotty little noise-makers have come up with some killer stuff: Their two albums are titled “They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top,” and “They Were Wrong So We Drowned.” Their songs run the same gamut of absurdity, with titles such as “Atheists, Reconsider,” “There’s Always Room on the Broom,” “Fins To Make Us More Fish-Like” and “Mr. You’re on Fire Mr.”
Digging even deeper into the cultural detritus, we can begin to find the origins of non sequitur madness (at least in
the form we use it in now) in the 1960s comedy troupe Firesign Theatre.
The group’s acid-baked comedy soundscape albums contained a few of
the best examples of the form, with album titles such as “Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him,” “How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You’re Not Anywhere at All?,” “Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers!,” “I Think We’re All Bozos on This Bus,” and my personal favorite “Everything You Know is Wrong.”
It is obvious that the non sequitur has a distinct attraction as a comic form, something which really came to head in the 1970s with Monty Python’s Flying Circus (“And now for something completely different”) and the endless stream of absurdity flowing from the Zippy the Pinhead comic strip. These days, comedy has become more pedestrian and outright absurdity seems to have sadly fallen out of favor. Yet the non sequitur remains a vital force, through both the above-mentioned musical works and in everyday use. There is a subtle art to crafting a good non sequitur. It requires an amount of free associative ability, a sense of the absurd and an ear for the inane chatter of everyday conversation.
There are various styles within which to work, from the
literary (“Eat your porridge quickly for there are bears nearby”) to the sociopolitical (“Everyone loves a man with a gun in his hand”) to the outright absurd (“Midget golf pros are peaceful creatures”).
But, as with so many things these days, remember to keep it short and to the point.
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