The Plan for after You Get Punched in the Face (Part 8)

"The vegetable must be destroyed"

Last updated 22:31 PST 03/11/2025¹²³⁴

I’ve been more or less obsessed with the musical Little Shop of Horrors since four of the most charismatic people in my high school were cast as Seymour, Audrey, the leader of the doo-wop girls, and Audrey II.

I wish you could have seen them. I was rhapsodizing about the person playing Audrey to my dad at the time and he said, “She is not competing with other high school students. She is in the same league as the adult stars who have played the role.”

I mean, he was talking about freaking Ellen Greene:

Freaking Ellen Greene. Photo courtesy Joan Marcus. If you know, you know, and if you don’t, I beg you to treat yourself to this woman’s performance.

Today, I reassemble these Avengers from my high school days to teach us our lesson about despair.

Ways to Avoid Despair (8/10)

8. Find Your Fight Song

So the story of Little Shop of Horrors is that a nebbishy garden shop assistant named Seymour Krelborn comes into contact with a strange plant that looks a bit like a Venus flytrap. Seymour is infatuated with a lovely customer named Audrey. He names the plant Audrey II as a tribute to Audrey I.

Seymour comes to learn that the plant can grow only by [SPOILER ALERT] consuming human blood and bodies. Audrey II grows and grows and Seymour finds food in a moral gray zone and the plant becomes more and more spectacular and newsworthy. Soon the press beats Seymour’s door down with offers of lecturing tours and TV gardening shows and even the cover of Life magazine.

In the song, “The Meek Shall Inherit,” Seymour wrestles with the dilemma posed by these media overtures:

I take these offers

That means more killing

Who knew success would come with messy nasty strings

I sign these contracts

That means I’m willing

To keep on doing bloody awful evil things

No!

No!

There’s only so far you can bend!

No!

No!

This nightmare must come to an end!

No!

No!

You’ve got no alternative, Seymour, old boy

Though it means you’ll be broke again and unemployed

It’s the only solution

It can’t be avoided

The vegetable must be destroyed.

The song doesn’t end there. But this section of the song, in which Seymour convinces himself that he must kill Audrey II, represents a genre of music that I dub the Fight Song.

Auntie Genevieve, Whaddaya Mean, “Fight Song?”

I’m busy, let’s ask Google Search Labs AI:

Search Labs | AI Overview

A fight song is a short, rousing song that is sung to encourage a sports team. Fight songs are often played at sporting events, and are used by teams at the collegiate, secondary, and professional levels.

What is the purpose of a fight song?

• To inspire enthusiasm and encourage the team

• To create a sense of community and tradition

• To allow fans to cheer together for their team

Examples of fight songs

• Utah Man: A fight song for a school

• Battle Hymn of the Republic: A fight song for the Union army

• Fight Song: A pop rock song by Rachel Platten that was used as a campaign song for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign

When I use the term “Fight Song,” I am using it in this sense, because Lord knows we need ways to inspire enthusiasm and encourage the team, create a sense of community and tradition, and allow fans to cheer together for [our] team.

Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song” is in fact a great example of a song that does that, and in fact actually did do that for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign:

Kk, that’s good as far as it goes, but as I often say, Search Labs AI doesn’t know everything quite yet.

Here’s my unique viewpoint as a bonafide child of the human species.

• You need your own Fight Song right now, or even more than one Fight Song.

• You need something to sing that will inspire and encourage yourself and your (our) team.

• You need something to sing that creates a sense of community and tradition (and I don’t mean the “history and tradition” described by Justice Clarence Thomas).

• You need something to sing that allows you & other fans of life on this Earth to cheer together for our team and our #squadgoals such as Peace, Liberty, and Safety.

• You can draw confidence about this approach from the essential role that music played in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. (A subject for future posts.)

And you need this even if you don’t think of yourself as a singer. This is singing you can do alone in the car or in the shower. This is singing you can do silently inside the borders of your own head where Peace, Liberty, and Safety are in plentiful supply.

Now, as I say all that, you might already be thinking, AUNTIE GENEVIEVE! I HAVE A FIGHT SONG!! I HAVE ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS SUNG ALONG TO “LOSE YOURSELF” (🇪EMINEM) IN THE CAR ON THE WAY TO IMPORTANT MEETINGS!

And if that is you, I am so happy for you. You got this! Just keep singing that song! Think about our country and our community and our families and our love for our fellow human beings & all life on Earth while you sing it! You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow, this opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo!

On the other hand, maybe you haven’t found your Fight Song yet. Maybe you’re thinking, Errrrrrrmmm, Auntie Genevieve, I don’t completely hate the idea, but I don’t know about this, I don’t like to sing, my old teacher told me I’m tone-deaf, my roommates laugh at my singing, I don’t know where to begin, there’s recorded music that dates back to 1888, that’s 137 years of back catalog, I am busy, I just cannot do this. Also, this is silly and I should be reading about the doings of the new administration instead.

As the personal trainer for your work & life, allow me to step in at this pivotal moment and help you Find Your Fight Song™️.

If you’ve already had enough reading for today, sally on over to the “Find Your Fight Song” playlist and just start listening [CONTENT WARNING: a great Fight Song is often blue as h*ll]. You cleared all that time yesterday by killing your podcasts, now let’s find you something to sing:

If you prefer a more structured approach to finding your song, let me whistle-stop you through my own patented Thirteen Types of Fight Songs™️.

Type 1: Developing Conviction

So let’s get back to Seymour Krelborn and his treacherous plant.

“The Meek Shall Inherit” contains Seymour’s mounting rationale for killing Audrey II. Can he stomach the violence & murder (“bloody awful evil things”) required to keep the plant alive, or must the vegetable be destroyed? By the end of the song, he persuades himself that in fact, in order to maintain his connection to Audrey, he must keep the vegetable alive. “Without my plant, she might not love me anymore.”

This type of song proliferates in musical theatre, for which the rule of thumb is that each song must move the plot forward. It’s useful to the musical’s creators to dramatize inner monologue as a character develops the conviction to make the next part of the plot happen. This inherent, increasing energy in the songs makes them terrifically effective as Fight Songs

Other Fight Songs in the Developing Conviction category include:

• “Now (It’s Just the Gas),” also from Little Shop of Horrors, in which Seymour develops the conviction that he must kill Audrey’s no-good boyfriend the dentist

• “Lose Yourself,” Eminem

• “My Shot,” Hamilton. Remarkable four-way game of developing conviction, in which Alexander Hamilton, John Laurens, Lafayette, and Hercules Mulligan convince themselves to fight for American independence

• “The Room Where It Happened,” Hamilton, which sounds like a different type of song altogether, but because Lin-Manuel Miranda is a subtle genius, it’s actually the song of Aaron Burr developing the conviction that he belongs in the room where it happens, thus building the resentment that leads to [SPOILER ALERT] Burr killing Hamilton in the final duel

• “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” Encanto, in which Mirabel develops the conviction that [SPOILER ALERT] she must solve the mystery of Bruno in order to save her family

• “Stars,” sung by Javert in Les Misérables, in which [SPOILER ALERT] he develops the conviction that he will pursue Jean Valjean to his last breath, he swears by the stars!

Type 2: Let’s Get Ready for a Special Event

These Fight Songs are about getting decked out for whatever exciting thing is about to happen. They can range in scope:

• Let’s get ready to go to war

  • “One Day More,” Les Misérables

• Let’s get ready to have a duel

  • “Ten Duel Commandments,” Hamilton

• Let’s primp prior to a nice party

  • “Good as Hell,” Lizzo

  • “The Merry Old Land of Oz,” The Wizard of Oz

Type 3: Let’s 🤬 Go

Fight Songs in this category are even more primal than those of Type 2 - they are purely about the energy of getting going, moving, activating into action. This category sometimes works for me when nothing else can move me, so let me give you plenty of options:

• “We’re Off to See the Wizard,” The Wizard of Oz

• “Let’s Go,” the Cars

• “Here It Goes Again,” OK Go

• “Movin’ Right Along,” The Muppet Movie

• “Roar,” David Johnson

• “Time to Be Awesome,” My Little Pony: The Movie

• “One Foot in Front of the Other, “ Bone Symphony, Revenge of the Nerds

• “Get the Party Started,” P!NK

• “I’m Coming Out,” Diana Ross

• “Jump in the Line,” Harry Belafonte

• “Bang a Gong (Get It On),” T. Rex

• “Get on Your Feet,” Gloria Estefan

• “The Spark,” Kabin Crew

• “Turn On Your Love Light,” Bobby “Blue” Bland

Type 4: Oríkì

Allow me to pause here and quote my favorite Professional Troublemaker, Luvvie Ajayi Jones:

“What’s an oríkì (OH-ree-kee)? It is a Yorùbá word that combines two words to mean ‘praising your head/mind.’ Orí is ‘head’ and kì is ‘to greet or praise.’ An oríkì is a greeting that praises you through praising your kinship and speaking life to your destiny. It is your personal hype mantra, and can be spoken or sung.”

This is a perfect description of the Fight Songs in this category. These songs consist of folks saying HEY, look at me, this is who I am, these are my strengths, these are my problems, this is my family, and more. (This category also has deep ties to the genre we would call Blues - more on that in a future post.) Many folks looking for a Fight Song migrate naturally to this category:

• “Dentist!” from Little Shop of Horrors

• “My Name Is,” Eminem

• “Alexander Hamilton,” Hamilton

• “I Am Moana (Song of the Ancestors)” and “Shiny,” Moana

• “The Family Madrigal,” Encanto

• “Surface Pressure,” Encanto

• “it boy,” bbno$

• “We Take Care of Our Own,” Bruce Springsteen

• “American Girl,” Tom Petty

• “Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going to be a Long, Long Time),” Elton John

• “I’m the Man,” Joe Jackson

• “Butter,” BTS

• “Material Girl,” Madonna

• “Not Evil,” The Lego Movie: The Second Part

• “I Love this Life,” The Blue Nile

• “Good Morning, Gorgeous,” Mary J. Blige

• “Runnin’,” David Dallas, featured in Adam Sandler’s film Hustle

• “Ruckus in B Minor,” Wu-Tang Clan (shout-out to Alex W’s

  Spin This for putting this song on my radar this week)

Type 5: U Can’t Touch Me

Closely related to Type 4 is Type 5, with an added layer of, so, this is me, and furthermore, you cannot hurt me. This category reminds me of Jennifer Connelly’s character at the end of Labyrinth saying to David Bowie’s Jareth, [SPOILER ALERT] “You have no power over me.”

• “U Can’t Touch This,” MC Hammer

• “Kamikaze,” PJ Harvey

• “You Can’t Stop the Beat,” Hairspray

• “I Will Survive,” Gloria Gaynor

• “The Mary Ellen Carter,” Stan Rogers

• “Get Back Up Again,” Trolls

• “You’re the Best,” Joe “Bean” Esposito, The Karate Kid

• “Let ‘Em Say,” Lizzo & Caroline Smith

• “Don’t Come Around Here No More,” Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

• “Children of the Revolution,” T. Rex. (Also a great Fight Song because you get to sing, “I drive a Rolls Royce 'cuz it’s good for my voice.”)

• “Stayin’ Alive,” Bee Gees or Lizzo

• “Unstoppable,” Sia

• “Changed the Locks,” Lucinda Williams

Type 6: I Want Something or Someplace

Also closely related to Type 4, these Fight Songs say, this is who I am, and this is what I want. Often, the thing they want is a place where they can belong, a place offering Peace, Liberty, and Safety:

• “Somewhere that’s Green,” Little Shop of Horrors (freaking Ellen Greene OMG)

• “Over the Rainbow,” The Wizard of Oz

• “If I Only Had a Brain / a Heart / the Nerve,” The Wizard of Oz

• “Take Me to the River,” Al Green or Talking Heads

• “Suffragette City,” David Bowie

• “In a Big Country,” Big Country

• “Philadelphia Freedom,” Ike & Tina Turner

• “Love Shack,” the B-52s

• “Our House,” Madness

• “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight),” ABBA

• “Funkytown,” Lipps Inc.

• “I Know A Place,” MUNA

• “Can You Help Me?” American Music Club

• “Waiting on a Miracle,” Encanto

• “Part of Your World,” The Little Mermaid

• “Up There,” sung by Satan, South Park: Bigger, Louder, and Uncut

Type 7: I’m Outta Here

Almost like the converse of Type 6, these songs are about wanting to leave a place. Perhaps because that place no longer offers Peace, Liberty, or Safety:

• “I’m Gone,” Dolly Parton

• “Listen to the Radio,” Nanci Griffith

• “Ramble On,” Led Zeppelin

• “Gone, Gone, Gone,” Robert Plant & Alison Krauss

• “Easy,” The Commodores

• “Down with Disease,” Phish

• “Dirty Work,” Steely Dan

• “Time to Move On,” Tom Petty. Guest DM writes, “What’s amazing about ‘Time to Move On’ is that the song matches the lyrics perfectly. It’s a song about moving on and it SOUNDS LIKE a song about moving on.”

Type 8: I Got You, Babe

In these Fight Songs, folks express their love and support for one another, most often in a romantic situation but sometimes in the friend zone:

• “I Got You Babe,” Sonny & Cher

• “Suddenly, Seymour,” Little Shop of Horrors (feat. freaking Ellen Greene)

• “Helpless,” Hamilton

• “Everything Is AWESOME,” The Lego Movie

• “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” Simon & Garfunkel

• “Here I Am (Come and Take Me)”, Al Green

• “Maybe I’m Amazed,” Paul McCartney

• “Lean on Me,” Bill Withers

• “Like a Prayer,” Madonna

• “Call Me Maybe,” Carly Rae Jepsen

• “Shut Up and Dance with Me,” WALK THE MOON

• “You Spin Me Round (Like A Record),” Dead Or Alive

• “Love is an Open Door,” Frozen

Type 9: Power to the People

Collectivism! Like Type 8, but with more than two people and sometimes with the entire general public.

• “Do You Hear the People Sing?” Les Misérables

• “People Get Ready,” The Impressions or Curtis Mayfield

• “(For God’s Sake) Give More Power To The People,” the Chi-Lites

• “The Underlings (99% Song),” t.k. potrero

• “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love,” The Blues Brothers

• “Get Up, Stand Up,” The Wailers

• “9 to 5,” Dolly Parton

Type 10: Things Can Get Better Someday

This is one of my personal favorite categories - the one I find myself singing without even thinking about it in the car or in the shower.

• “O-o-h Child,” the Five Stairsteps

• “I Can See Clearly Now,” Johnny Nash

• “Light of a Clear Blue Morning,” Dolly Parton or Waxahatchee

• “You Can Get It If You Really Want,” Desmond Dekker or Jimmy Cliff

• “Everything’s Not Awesome,” The Lego Movie: The Second Part

• “Dog Days Are Over,” Florence + the Machine

• “Hard Times Are Over,” Yoko Ono

Type 11: Movie Soundtracks & Instrumentals

This is another category to which folks naturally gravitate when they are looking for music to pump them up or get them through the day.

Tastes in this category are deeply individual. Some people seem to be allergic to all examples of Type 10, while others have an almost constant life soundtrack from their favorite movies.

• “Gonna Fly Now,” “Going the Distance,” and “The Final Bell,” Bill Conti, Rocky

• “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” Edvard Grieg, Peer Gynt, and its naughty little brother, “Hair Up,” Trolls

• “Hawaii Five-O,” the Ventures

• “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” from the film of the same name; also “The Ecstasy of Gold”

• “Carmina Burana: O Fortuna,” Carl Orff

• “Soul Bossa Nova,” Quincy Jones (featured in Austin Powers)

• “A Fifth of Beethoven,” Walter Murphy

• “The James Bond Theme,” John Barry

• “Mission: Impossible Theme,” Michael Giacchino

• “Brooklyn Nine Nine (Main Title Theme)”

• The entire soundtrack to Interstellar. (If this floats your ⛵️ I highly highly recommend you sit down with this obsessed YouTube music smart person.)

Type 12: Hybrids & Blends

Of course this whole Fight Song Type System™️ is made up, and plenty of great fight songs demonstrate patterns of more than one type. If you and your family are truly bored on a long car journey, try to come up with blends by memory, or listen to your favorite songs and see if they can be Typed into one category or Understood as a Blend of Types.

• I love “Cemetery Gates” by the Smiths, a blend of Type 6 (I want someplace) and Type 8 (I wanna go there with you).

• “Let It Go,” Frozen, in which Elsa develops her conviction that she belongs apart from the rest of the world (Type 1), says a firm farewell to her old life (Type 7, I’m Outta Here), and fully embraces her true self (Type 4, Oríkì). The cold never bothered her anyway!

• “What Else Can I Do?” Encanto, a mix of Type 1 (Developing Conviction) and Type 4 (Oríkì), with a firm dash of Type 8 (I’ve Got You, Babe) in the form of Mirabel’s joy in Isabella’s discovery of her powers.

• “Pink Pony Club,” Chappell Roan, in which the protagonist talks about leaving Tennessee (Type 7), finding herself (Type 4), and reveling in the place where she belongs (Type 6). And I like the firm pinch of Type 5, U Can’t Touch Me, with the repeated references to not caring that her mother doesn’t approve.

• “Kingmaker,” Tami Neilson, a suspenseful and satisfying mix of Type 1 (Developing Conviction), Type 5 (U Can’t Touch Me), and Type 4 (Oríkì), as the protagonist realizes that [SPOILER ALERT] it’s herself, not her ex-whatever, who is the powerful one.
  

Type 13: Fight Song Wild Cards

And of course there are songs that absolutely work as Fight Songs that don’t fall into any of these twelve categories. Some of my personal favorites land in this category:

• “Some Nights,” fun. Love this Fight Song about not knowing what you stand for.

• “Grant Hart,” the Posies. This song named for Hüsker Dü’s drummer can turn my mood around instantly. I’m particularly fired up when I sing the line, “For a start, take two Grant Harts and call me when you die.”

• “Birdhouse in Your Soul,” They Might Be Giants. This song can be read as a conversation between two special pals, or as a more general piece of advice (“make a little birdhouse in your soul”) that applies to the listener as well. If the former, I’d call it Type 8 (I’ve got you, babe); if the latter, we could almost pop it into Type 9 (power to the people). But it feels sufficiently offbeat to stand alone.

• “Another One Bites the Dust,” Queen. Have never figured out what this song is about but under its influence I can accomplish almost anything.

• “La Llorona,” Coco. A song dating back to 1941 which references a legend that dates back at least to 1550s Mexico turns magically into one of the best chase scenes in modern movies and a duet between two erstwhile lovers now mortal enemies even in death. If this song can do that, we can surely do anything that we put our minds to.

• “Dear God,” XTC. The protagonist(s?) address/es God and asks Him to take better care of His people. This could be shoehorned into Type 9, but the theological angle is strong enough and strange enough to make it feel like an outlier.

• Speaking of God, I love “99 and 1/2” as sung by Mavis Staples when she was 68. She sings, “My God is a Freedom God” 🙌

Today’s Way to Cultivate Joy

So today’s way to cultivate joy is easy - go enjoy your new Fight Song(s)! Sing anywhere, in the shower, in the car, in your head, on public transport, to yourself while working. Bonus points if you can involve others, e.g. listen with kids or friends in the car and see if you can get them to sing with you. Share your song with your community and encourage them to join you in singing it or to find their own.

Another amazing way to squeeze juice outta your Fight Song is to learn more about it. Who’s the artist? Who’s the producer? Who wrote it and why? When and where was it recorded? Does it have album art? Does it have the world’s best music video:

If your Fight Song hasn’t yet leapt to mind, I have a few tips:

• Drive around with the “Find Your Fight Song” playlist playing and just keep going through songs till you find yourself singing along. Singing in the car is one of the great joys in life.

• I highly recommend trying different songs until you find one that falls naturally into your vocal range. The more loose and uninhibited you can be in your singing, the more you can reap the psychic benefits of the power of music to sustain you for the fights ahead.

• Think back to the music you listened to when you were growing up. Or did you ever have a favorite song to sing for karaoke? Or what were you listening to when you last felt like you were functioning well, in the zone, enjoying your creativity, concentrating while listening to music? Dust those old songs off to see if they can step up now as your Fight Song.

• If you still haven’t found a Fight Song that fits you, I want you to write one. Much more on this in a future post.

I wish great blessings upon your journey to find and revel in your Fight Song.

May your Fight Song(s) fill you with the energy you need to sustain yourself in the Year of Our Lord 2025 / the Year of the Wood Snake.

Write to me, let me know what your Fight Song is, and I can add it to the playlist so others can adopt it too.

Don’t go it alone,

Genevieve 👩‍🎤🎶

1. Last updated with songs from Optimus, the Chief of Balance, and Attorney General Mayhem.

2. Last updated with song from Da Maximizer.

3. Enhanced with ancient insights from the Chemical Symbol for Lead.

4. Going interstellar with our old friend JLP. Also decided to upgrade this post from 12 to 13 types of Fight Song™️.