Characters work well if they and their creator are a team.
A sort of fictionalized take on my parodying the compilation Outside Looking In The Best Of The Gin Blossoms.
A port. The source of only occasional opportunities for pirates, like having freshly peeled fruit, and most importantly, escaping horrid creatures that lived in the sea. Will Turner was taken to, well, some island in the Caribbean, where one can be free from having to take a night watch, among other things. This idea was at the fore, and it gave rise to Hey Matey
and Just Out With No Scares.
Lots of ideas of avoiding sea creatures were used. Pieces of Eight
did not even mention anything worse than torrents of rain.
Still, as Until I Sail Away
reminded us, If he’s arrested, I will thank those responsible, or be the one who did it myself.
After all, some things should get the boot. The desire to do so had not gone away, they had just opened themselves up to other things, and were glad for it.
You and I both,
they were told about that gladness by a voice from the other side of the fourth wall.
Work was long. Not too long, just enough to ensure the songs were changed in a way that did not convince you the hand of the author needed to be washed, as was often the case with characters that had been employed before. Employer and characters whispered and worked out how they would surprise the readers, while wondering how much the audience had picked up on Jack Spasm and Squidbeard’s eviction from the musical world.
Here the crew were, dancing to the songs, thinking of the sword’s uses, even when the fact that said weapon did not particularly suit any of these songs finally flashed before the crew. They now knew what all they were using. Barbossa could get his critical fix singing about how The Method Always Matters
for the playing of music, and much preening ensued.
I think I’d find all of the treasure must have been left behind on a sailing boat,
they wrote, not wanting anything their enemy had for them. Thanks to help from their employer, a battle served only as a source of material. They slipped away from any named man, or thing, not on their side, although in the name of fairness Barbossa could have some trouble here and there.
The Crew decided early on that who was singing what parody need not be set in stone, helpfully. So, for maximum flexibility, these beautiful parodies could be sung by a person who agreed with them of any sort. But the pirate perspective was there, on daytime and night, on what they had, and on some other things too. Their stars guided them, they went far to find towns, they sat by portholes.
They wanted no gangplank when they were out being sailors, no movement between ships, trying impatiently to have a fine time, and the fact was reflected in what they did with Mrs. Rita and Cajun Song. In those parodies, they removed themselves, wanting the enemy to leave Jack.
We
was often said by the Crew, if they could have made anything have a group personality. That was one thing they were often able to do, as Jack agreed with people on lots of things. Like, say, that torrents of rain made stone dark and slippery, and that a sword existed to cut things. Actually, it did not mean anything. What mattered was that Jack could get behind his employer and crew, singing about things Jack might not have caused, as they did in Can’t Feel Fear From You.
The appeal of a song was a delicate thing to Jack. Knowing how to make the parody an actual improvement upon the song was like learning to throw a stone straight were you wanted. It was not as if you just changed words and ching, you had a parody. After all, his employer, being on the other side of the fourth wall, might as well be a god who could bring torrents upon Jack if she wanted to.
Ching anyway, as the pirates came back from what they had found: the great parody Not Only Dumb.
The employer was not a mother to the Crew, but she had certain responsibility for them.
We’ll go there,
she said, taking them over to the albums that had previously been made about Squidbeard by Jack Spasm. I was too fixated on barnacle burning when I parodied these, Jack. Back then, I employed the wrong captain.
After training her newer employees on suitably easy songs, Blue is ready to take them to what she tried before she was ready.