Gingerbread Man(1995)OverviewTracksLiner NotesLyricsStories
The Gingerbread Man is the band's first exploration of a new kind of album -- what they call an "expanded album". It combines the normal CD format with an interactive CD-ROM track and can be either played on a standard CD-player or played with on a computer.
The album explores the personalities of nine characters and their "rather strange outlooks on life". Each character, according to The Residents, has the Gingerbread Man in them somewhere, represented in the music by the Gingerbread Man theme:
Run, run, as fast as you can You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man...
Each of the songs have the same general format: a 30-second introduction (which usually features the Gingerbread Man theme) followed by a verse sung by the character, and then a mix of comments and thoughts by the character over music which expands on the themes in the verse, given the listener glimpses into the person's thoughts. The interactive CD-ROM program also uses the same format, letting the user play his or her keyboard like a visual instrument by triggering various images, sounds, texts, and effects through the keyboard and mouse. The album is a series of audio portraits done in a unifying style (much as the busts created for the album are all very similar in style but different in details) rather than as a collection of distinct songs.
The Residents brought a number of people together to help on this album. Ty Roberts (who had produced Ty's Freak Show) was producer on this project through his new CD-ROM company, ION. Voices for the characters were provided by not only The Residents, but also Laurie Amat (The Weaver), Diana Alden (The Confused Transsexual), Molly Harvey (The Old Woman), Isabelle Barbier, and Todd Rundgren (The Sold Out Artist, The Ascentic, and The Aging Musician). EuroRalph also released a soundtrack version of the album which doesn't have the interactive CD-ROM track.
- The Weaver
- The Dying Oilman
- The Confused Transsexual
- The Sold-Out Artist
- The Ascetic
- The Old Soldier
- The Aging Musician
- The Butcher
- The Old Woman
- Ginger's Lament
pREServed Edition Disc One: Gingerbread Man and Live Ginger
- The Weaver
- The Dying Oilman
- The Confused Transsexual
- The Sold-out Artist
- The Ascetic
- The Old Soldier
- The Aging Musician
- The Butcher
- The Old Woman
- Ginger's Lament
- The Gingerbread Man (1997)
- The Aging Musician (1997)
- The Old Woman (1997)
- The Sold-out Artist (1997)
- Gingerbread Man Suite (2001)
- The Old Woman (2011)
- The Confused Transsexual (2013)
pREServed Edition Disc Two: The Fat Boy Tape and Instrumental
- Banco
- Last Ton
- Snots
- E-Z
- Devise LP
- Mood I
- Blues for Twos
- Burn 3
- Malice Timba
- Another
- Cod Rack
- Little Thoughts
- Trail Mix
- Pizza
- Laughin Waters
- Uncomfort
- Uncomfort (2)
- Warm Pallet
- Summertime
- Weep No More
- Black Forest
- Prosane
- Robber Baron
- Harts
- Imple
- Mighty
- Nutstoya
- Yahoo
- Jandine
- Dunlap #2
- Isosceles
- Big Jumble A
- Gingerbread Man (The Complete Instrumental)
pREServed Edition Disc Three: Hunters and Prelude to 'The Teds'
- Hunters Prelude
- The Deadly Game
- Tooth and Claw
- The Dangerous Sea
- Rulers of the Deep
- Track of the Cat
- The Giant Grizzlies
- Dawn of the Dragons
- Eye of the Serpent
- The Crawling Kingdom
- The Savage Pack
- Hunters Reprise
- Teddy
- I Tried to Cry
- The Cry of a Crow
- Struggle
About The Residents
The Residents are an anonymous group of artists based in San Francisco who are primarily known for the creation of experimental music, performance, and video. In slightly more than two decades, they have released over 20 albums of recorded music, toured the United States, Europe, Australia, and Japan with three different performance pieces, and have been credited with the invention of a new art form, the music video. The creative output of the group has steadfastly defied categorization, but has always been marked by a consistent vision that is at once both mysterious and disturbing.
About the Disc
The Residents' Gingerbread Man is a unique hybrid Compact Disc that actually combines two types of digital data on the same disc. One set of data exists on track 1 of the CD and is specifically meant to be used with a properly configured computer and CD-ROM drive. This is referred to as The Expanded Album (TM) version of the disc. The other set of data utilizes tracks 2 - 11 and provides approximately 37 minutes of standard Redbook Audio that can be played on any CD-Audio player. This is the complete Gingerbread Man album and is referred to as the audio only version of the disc.
A Cryptic Perspective
The one thing that appears certain is that The Residents' Gingerbread Man is, at its core, simply the latest Residents album. It just so happens that the album is a CD, but that's fine, because The Residents were making albums long before there were CDs. Pushing and tugging at the edge of technology is always the case with The Residents, so it seems fitting that not only is this an album that's a CD, but it's a CD that's both a CD-Audio and a CD-ROM on the same disc. In either format you are provided access to the lives of 9 distinctively different characters who seemingly have little in common. Little in common, that is, except for the presence of the Gingerbread Man in each of them. It's been suggested that if you listen carefully, you can pick out the haunting theme of The Residents' Gingerbread Man that pervasively weaves through each character's song.
Expand allThe Weaver
Run, run, as fast as you can
You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man
You can look, look, hard as you can
You can't see me, I'm the Gingerbread Man
Poor old family of man
Never mind me, I'm just a Gingerbread Man
Only hours away could be a man with a million dollars
Only minutes away could be a guy with a gun
Only seconds away could be a love that will last forever
But if it gets away there might not ever be one
In and out, in and out, in and out
How many times do I think "in and out, in and out"?
This color's not right
It needs some more red
Maybe it's the light
Now I'm not sure
I wonder where Ken is
What's she doing?
Ah, she's asleep
He tries to help
I know he loves me
But sometimes he seems so out of touch
And all he cares about are his words
So old and tired
I need someone to help me
And what if that guy follows him?
Last week he told me about that man who kept staring at him
I can see him with his throat cut now
Oh, why do I do this?
I can see it all - school picture in the newspaper
"Child savagely slain"
God, I wish he was home now
The Dying Oilman
I could be good
Maybe I'm crazy
I could be good
Maybe I'm mad
I could be good
Don't get in my way because
I could be good
But I'm bad
I never thought it be like this
I just figured it'd be a brand new El Dorado every year from now on
Aw, who is this guy in the mirror
He looks so weak and pasty
I always wanted to take little Sam
To see that Sphinx statue over there in Egypt
I still don't like the idea of that guy over in Denver
Firefloodin' on my field
Asshole's so dumb he wouldn't know a pisspot from a kumquat
God, he could cost me a thousand barrels a day out of that field
Always wanted to see all that stuff they got over there in Europe
And take little Sam and Earline both
God, I need a smoke
Don't seem like one little smoke would matter that much now
I gotta go back for more of them treatments tomorrow
Green
The whole goddamn place is green
But it ain't grass green or money green
It's puke green or pus green
And it's the kind of green I feel like when I'm there
Like a bug about to be squished
I just know Earline would love to see that Eiffel Tower
Over there in France
I think maybe she even has a poster about it in her room
The Confused Transsexual
I'm the Gingerbread Man
Some say the song of a crow is a cry
Some say the cry of a crow is a lie
I wonder what it's like to be one of them
Do they get jealous?
Are some blacker
And therefore creators of envy and mistrust in the dark hearts
Of their brethren?
Or do they just exist
Scavenging crumbs of carrion here and there
Laughing, cackling really
At the two legged pestilence
Painfully fouling the ground beneath their airborne pirouettes
Do they really want their screeching and hideous demanding offspring
Or do they simply have no choice
But to follow compulsions blindly
Driving them into situations they cannot control
Situations that look so easy and desirable
But lead only to the same pain
And the same suffering
And the same lifeless branches that always indicate
A barrier of barren emptiness
Dead trees are everywhere
The Sold-Out Artist
Out in the street and under the sun
I kissed his feet and loaded his gun
Sooner or later everyone does
Everybody feeds the fat boy
Everybody feeds the fat boy
They just don't get it
Vampires - vampires
It's all about vampires but they're all vampires too
It's all about sucking on something
Some suck scum, some suck tits and some just suck up
They all suck something
Except Ted Williams
He never sucked
I'll be buried with Ted Williams cards
He hit .406 in 1941
Coulda sat out the last game with a .3995
And gone in the book as .400 but he played
And he went four for five
Ted Williams he never sucked
Yeah they all think I suck
But they really wish their stuff sold like mine
Next I'll do "Nude Descending a Staircase"
I'll get a hundred grand for it
Let 'em suck that!
The Ascetic
Every day I go up on the mountain
Climb to the top but I don't know what for
It's quiet until I hear a voice up on the mountain
Beware of what you want
It might want you more
ashes my burned hut
but beautiful like cherry
blooming on the hill
-one of my patients just before he died
And just before I left the hospital and began to travel
If he could face death so calmly
How could I face life with so much doubt
Now I can sit on the side of a mountain
And watch the shadows slowly filling the valley floor
But not without the doubts that still linger
And constantly caress the edges of my shadowy interior
At least a catheter expels impurities in a manner of model efficiency
And my previous profession always at least offered that
Flawless vasectomies in clean and well lit places
A sterile field sealed from infection but not from disease
I often wonder if I left anyone behind
But somehow I just can't be remember
Only an oddly defined drive to find a better way
But somehow I don't believe this is it
As I watch the shadows slowly creeping closer
I think about India and the Hindu concept of Maya
It took me so long to understand
The space between reality and perception
And now it seems that I live there
The Old Soldier
She used to call me Daddy
But she was so glad she
Left me for someone he was
Rich but not too funny
Why do I come to these things?
It always makes me think of Marion
Come to these places and talk about commies
It's all about money
I could never give her the things she wanted
But I never thought she'd leave me for money
God, it's hot
I can still feel her body underneath my hands
Still feel the breath on my neck
Still feel the slight dampness of her perspiration
On her silky wrist
I can't do it again
I can't come to another one of these ridiculous reunions
And watch old men getting drunk on nostalgia
Reliving their imaginary glory
And making me realize that I must look exactly like them
It's too painful
I need the illusions of an aging safety equipment salesman
Whose young but not so bright wife
Is willing more than to tolerate his unpleasant but harmless
Flights of fancy
At least she's mine
The Aging Musician
Run, run, run, run
Run, run, run, run
Run, run, fast as you can
Run, run, fast as you can
Run, run, fast as you can
You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man
Once upon a time I played electric guitar
And they said I was a rock and roll star
Now nobody calls me on the telephone
So I sit and watch my TV all alone
Maybe if I put a bullet in my brain
They'd remember me like Kurt Cobain
And the parasites on MTV
Would wipe their eyes and act like they knew me
But I wouldn't be a hero I'd be dead
Just a note beside a corpse that read
If you like to pretend that you'll never get old
You got what it takes to rock and roll
Jagger - he was a poet
None of this three chords and a hairdresser crap
I just need a couple of players
With a couple of really good players
I could have a band again go back on the road
C'mere boy
Play real music none of this computer crap
Real music
We could go big
Whatever happened to music
Now it's all about marketing and media coverage
Goddamn MTV
Everything was okay before MTV
And gun control - like gun control's gonna stop anything
A Trooper Mark III'll stop just about anything
C'mere boy
Schnauzer, where's Uzi?
Is he outside?
Nothing's right anymore not even TV
Davy Crockett said it all
If you're sure you're right then go ahead on
Now nothing's right
Goddamn MTV
The Butcher
Run, run, fast as you can you can
You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man
Run, run, fast as you can you can
You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man
Buddy didn't say I'm sorry
Buddy didn't ask to be excused
Buddy didn't beg your pardon
When he steps on you
He leaves too much fat on these t-bones
Jerk
I know he's gonna leave without cleaning up again
He knows I'll do it
Damn this knife is dull
I know I just sharpened it yesterday
I know he used it
He knows it's my favorite knife
It's not supposed to be this way
Everyone says that if you come back
It's better than it was before
But, but it's no different
And what about the light? - what about the blue light?
There's supposed to be a beautiful blue light
But all I saw was eels
Eels squirming everywhere
And life doesn't have any more meaning
only Buddy
It should have been him
And he should, should have stayed there with the eels
And, and, and all I can think about are his hands
His hands and how they look graceful and strong and, and, and sensitive
As they slice a section of rump roast
Or, or split the hindquarters of a lamb
And all I can think about are those same hands
How they must caress the face of his wife
And tie the shoe laces of his children
And, and
I can't stop
I can't stop
I can't stop
The Old Woman
Angel, answer my prayer
Answer my prayer tonight
Tell me if anyone cares
If I do what I might
Angel, answer my prayer
And tell me if anyone else
Knows how much I am scared
That I might murder myself
Who will take care of my plants?
Maybe Martha will take care of them
She called on Mother's Day and has a philodendron and a few ferns
They look terrible though, just like her house
She never dusts her leaves
What about Berta?
She's been married three times, how can she possibly take care of four kids?
They'll die - I just know these bugs will get them
Aphids - you have to watch for them all the time, they don't care
Sent Teddy seven fifty for his birthday last week, no thank-you note
It's all Martha's fault
She's not raising those children right
How long would it be until they noticed?
A week, two weeks, maybe months
I know why, I know why they ignore me
Martha pretends that she doesn't care anymore but I know better
And she's poisoned Berta against me too!
He was old and could barely hop around
And Mark would sure never have done it
Poor thing
Somebody had to do it
Somebody had to
Ginger's Lament
There once was a woman who once was a man
Who thought that he did but did not understand.
There once was a hermit who held in his hand
The heart of a lonely and unattached man.
There once was a soldier who stood in the sand
Saluting the sun when he wanted to dance.
There once was a butcher come back from the dead
He opened his mind and took poison instead.
There once was a weaver who wished for a fool
To live down below her and hand up her tools.
There once was a species who filled up the world
With lust, love, confusion, talk, tacos, and turds.
Expand allThe Gingerbread Man
"Run, run as fast as you can..."
Everybody knows the story of the Gingerbread Man. But back in the swamps of Louisiana, where the cottonmouths compete with the garfish and the gaspergou for breathing room down in the murky black bayous, they tell a different story.
In their version, the cookie man somehow escapes his usual fate and he becomes the hunter instead of the prey. But being more spirit than substance, this Gingerbread Man has an unusual appeteite and he feeds on energy. Dark, brooding, soul-sucking energy. Like a lion eyeing a limping gazzelle, the cookie man knows an easy mark, and the human race offers more than he can count...
The Weaver
An interlacer of threads often filled the hours of her toil with thoughts, weeaving constantly in and out of the darker regions of her mind. She was a good woman with an adequate marriage, but one in which romance no longer ignited these empty moments, except when she thought about the younger men she often watched at a nearby construction site. This inclination towards romance usually came cloaked in the form for strongest belief: the cause of the worker.
But this minor mental aberration was mild compared to the webs she spun concerning the safety of her children. They were never far from her thoughts and never far from an accidental death or a child molester. She never completely believed her daydreams of tiny bodies blanketed by blood or cherubic cheeks gagging on golf balls, but she tried...and tried... and tried.
The Dying Oilman
By bringing in gusher after gusher in the barren land of West Texas, the dying man had prospered, bleeding oil from the soil of the earth. His dazzling growth from poverty to wealth was envied by many, but now that change somehow seemed to be echoing in the cancer growing wild inside his body. For one accustomed to controlling everything, the inability to govern his own body was not easily accepted.
For the dying oilman, regret had always been an empty emotion delegated to the week, but lately he had found it supposed to be irresistible. His children had come late in life and, while his feelings for them were strong, their love could never pull him away from his work for more than a few hours at a time. Now he was consumed by thoughts of the trips he had planned, but never taken, with them.
"Blood may be thicker than water, but I guess it's thinner than oil," he thought, as he coughed himself to sleep.
The Confused Transsexual
They say that no man is an island," the neutered being told itself, "but I'm certainly not a peninsula."
After years of failing to conform to society's ideas of manhood, he had finally decided to become a woman. The difficult process was expensive, both in financial and in emotional terms, and, unfortunately, you'll do good in less than satisfying results. She found the same difficulties in connecting with other humans that he had discovered long ago.
Now, all alone in general us, it that remained seem to find peace only in the comfort of crows. I didn't really interact with the birds, but at least it was an honest distance with no pretense involved. Only a single question remained in its troubled mind blocking an otherwise open pathway into apathy.
"The difficult process was expensive, both in financial and in emotional terms, and, unfortunately, you'll do good in less than satisfying results. She found the same difficulties in connecting with other humans that he had discovered long ago.
Now, alone and genderless, the it that remained seem to find peace only in the comfort of crows. It didn't really interact with the birds, but at least it was an honest distance with no pretense involved. Only a single question remained in its troubled mind blocking an otherwise open pathway into apathy.
"Is the call of the crow a cry... or a lie?" it wondered.
The Sold-Out Artist
The painter had become successful beyond even his own bloated ambitions, but success had only lowered the depth of his seemingly bottomless cynicism. How could he possibly care about a world that rewarded dishonesty as easily as it had for him?
His craftsmanship was so flawless that few could tell his copies from the originals. At least not until he painted his signature vampire bats over the faces of the Mona Lisa, The Blue Boy and all the others. According to the twisted logic of this jaded artist, everyone was a vampire and owed their existence to the others upon which they sucks. Sucking on the work of the old masters made him no different than the others, he told himself, just a little more honest... and self-deceiving.
There was still room for the idea of purity still existed in his twisted way of thinking. In some strange way, he found that quality in baseball and his hero, Ted Williams. The artist often said that no one had ever used a bat better than Ted Williams.
The Ascetic
The former healer sat on the edge of nowhere looking inward. His idealism had led him to both enter and leave the medical profession. Now the same longing for, and failure to find, truth caused him to pause and reflect upon a life well over half gone, and much more than half empty.
He had fiercely avoided the entanglements of life. After all, how can one seriously pursue greater meaning in the presence of disposable diapers and Barney? buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Theosophy, all had appeared appealing at one time, and none could be faulted for the wisdom in their teachings. But somehow they were all the same, and ultimately all inadequate.
And now, it seemed, after reaching so high, he was left lower than ever. The wind brushed against his face and dried a tear before it got the chance to roll down his cheek.
"Perhaps it's time to become a journalist," he thought.
The Old Soldier
The seller of so-called "safety" wondered why he had done it again. He tolerated the ravages of age but he no longer winked at the image in the mirror. And reunions were mirrors. Mirrors of time and mirrors of memories, most of which were best left in the past. Did all the other old vets marching alongside him feel the same? Were they all somehow masochistically compelled to return to the company of their darkest days? Had all of the expectations of youth fallen so short that nothing was left but a blind retreat into mindless nostalgia?
Nostalgia also beckoned to him in the dark form of lost love. A young woman had left him shortly after he went overseas and he seldom thought about her any more, but she constantly occupied his thoughts at these reunions. He pretended that money, and not the love of a younger man, was the reason she left, and he even believed it... occasionally.
He had another young woman now, a much younger woman. She was neither pretty nor bright, but good company, and she did seem to enjoy their frequent excursions into the dark world of dominance and submission. At least she would never get away.
The Aging Musician
Once he winked, and the women would swoon. Once he lived in limos and watched the world through the darkest of glasses. Once he played and sang for millions around the world.
Now his primary relationship is with a pair of fox terriers. Now he collects guns instead of royalties. Now he watches TV constantly and still laughs at the old cartoons at sitcoms that formed the bulk of his obsolete and sadly naive values.
The aging musician feels betrayed by a culture that once embraced but no longer needs his simplistic songs praising the virtues and failures of true love. And if he could still evoke even a false belief in those songs, maybe he could still make it on the nostalgia circuit.
But it's so much easier to be bitter.
The Butcher
Once there was a dresser of flesh who went to a ledge overlooking the afterlife. He hesitated there, unable to initiate his final entrance into the infinite. The longer he paused, the more his vision became obscured by multitudes of long and sinewy sea creatures. Soon he found himself engulfed in a claustrophobic mass, a mass that screamed in his mind and created a sensation that unpleasantly recalled a combination of slime and saliva. Soon the terrified man blacked out, but not before one of the animals whispered in his ear, "You ain't got no buddy."
Eventually he awoke on an operating table and, when he returned to his job a few weeks later, he was still in a state of high agitation. A coworker whose presence he had long despised was just as irritating as ever, but now he found that the man possessed the most sensual and expressive hands he had ever seen.
"How can I love the hands of the man I hate?" he thought.
The Old Woman
The contemplation of suicide was one of the few joys in life for the lonely old woman. Her dark meditation was always the same. After she envisioned her death and the circumstances surrounding the discovery of the body, she then remembered why she could never commit to the fatal deed. And the reasons were always her roses. She could never trust her irresponsible daughters to take care of her her precious flowers.
In the dim fog of a once bright mind, she clearly saw the cause of her children's neglect: an incident long forgotten by her two daughters. It certainly couldn't be that she was critical, although she did find it quite difficult to refrain from pointing out a few problems when her children did manage an occasional call. Only to be helpful, of course.
