"Cousins"

Cousins?

I know what you're thinking, "isn't that awfully family values-ish for D.I. Prime?"

Yes, but everyone has to put up with family now and then, for holidays and so forth, so it's worth making an effort to get along with them. At least when they aren't taking pictures or have camcorders glued to their faces. In which case, in the words of the APA, "don't take this ass whoopin' personally." But that's really not the point.

The title should make it abundantly clear that this song is about one particular subset of D.I. Prime's family tree: his cousins. Oh sure, there are parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and even a brother on various branches, but the cousins outnumber them all by almost a 2-to-1 ratio these days.

Why Now?

Good question. D.I. Prime has had a slew of cousins for years. What inspired a song now? Simple, Aaron & Brian had bar mitzvahs within two weeks of each other. That meant a cornucopia of cousin contact in a compressed quantity of Kool-Aid. Uh, time. (Sorry. I get carried away.) Alliteration is assuredly addictive. (Astute analysis, eh?) After seeing them all in late October, D.I. started thinking about writing a song for/about them. At this point, a real artist with a concept of deadlines would have put his nose to the grindstone and finished the damn thing for Brian's bar mitzvah two weeks later. But we aren't talking about a real artist. We're stuck here on this lame web site talking about D.I. Prime. And let me tell you, his check for web design services better not bounce. But I digress.

Where was I? Oh yes, Prime missed the opportunity to finish it for Brian's bar mitzvah. He had a rough draft completed by Thanksgiving and only managed to finish it by the Hanukkah clustering because Hanukkah came late this year.

Anyhoo, enough prattling. D.I. Prime likes his cousins and you'd probably like to get to the payoff for having to read this dross.

2003 Update

All hail D.I. Prime, the great and wise, the all-seeing vaticinator. Back in 2000 he boldly proclaimed that he would have no more "to say 'til that in oh-trey when Joel comes of age." And, lo & behold! Joel officially came of age at his bar mitzvah on September 20th of 2003. What awesome foresight! Now if only he'd been right about shutting up during the intervening years. Ah well, nobody's perfect - a maxim Prime exemplifies to the utmost.

At the very end of the party, the DJ gathered the remaining guests into a circle around Joel and asked each guest to say something to the b'nai mitzvah (Hebrew for "make the check out to this kid"). Prime, megalomaniac that he is, couldn't resist being an attention whore. Instead of politely saying something nice about Joel and letting the DJ go on his way, he had to grab the DJ's microphone, steal the spotlight, and spout self-aggrandizing couplets with a mere sprinkling of Joel-centrism thrown for a veneer of appropriateness.

That performance is, thankfully, lost to posterity. The videographers had stopped taping before Prime started rapping, but fear not! Prime took the napkin with the lyric scribblings back to D.I. Labs and recorded it. Now everyone who missed the first (and last) live performance, and even those who didn't, can download it and use it as a threat to misbehaving children. ("Clean your room or I'll put D.I. Prime on the stereo!")

Gimme The Music

Download the "Cousins" mp3 (4.7 MB), unquestionably the last mp3 created by D.I. Prime in the previous millennium!

Download the "Roll With Joel" mp3 (1.1 MB).

Read the "Cousins" lyrics.

Read the "Roll With Joel" lyrics.

© Copyright 2000-2007 D.I. Prime, unless otherwise noted. The chorus of "Cousins" was shamelessly lifted (and subsequently mangled) from the song "We Are Family" by Nile Rodgers & Bernard Edwards, as performed by Sister Sledge. That worthy song was copyrighted in © 1979.