Pop Song Remix Needs a Music Video

So for those of you who are familiar with the pop song "Sail" by AWOLNATION, I wrote a spinnoff version called "Whale" based on Moby-Dick.  Dr. Burton said I could post the lyrics below.  I wanted to make a music video, but I wasn't able to record a video over a kareoke track of the original.  So I need help on that end.  But here are the lyrics, as well as a few (crude) illustrations that I would want to use in a potential video.  

Whale!

This is how the crew will die

white whale's gonna make us cry

blame it all on Ahab, baby,

Ahab's gonna work us all

we're gonna pay for his bad call
Blame it on the devil, baby!

Whale!
Whale!
Whale!
Whale!
Whale!

Maybe we should jump this ship,

maybe everyone should quit,

blame it all on not enough pay, baby.

Maybe this just wasn't right

Maybe we picked the wrong fight
blame it on monomania, Baby

Whale!
Whale!
Whale!
Whale!
Whale!

La la la la la
La la la la la oh!
La la la la la,
La la la la la oh!
La la la la la,
La la la la la,

Whale!
Whale!
Whale!
Whale!
Whale!

Deciding to consider a deeper context for this remixed song, I noticed that the original talks about disturbing mental health issues, which reminded me of Ahab's monomania.  So considered in that light, I looked up "monomania" in the text of Moby-Dick.  The Oxford English Dictionary defines monomania as a mental disorder or emotional state in which a patient is continually drawn to a single subject. Modern psychiatry would identify some cases as OCD.  From the usage of the term in the novel, not surprising for a 19th-century text, monomania is regarded as something to be dreaded.  To the monomaniac Ahab, the world around him exists only to satisfy his wishes, and even the "veriest trifles" point to the theme he seeks.  And the things that drive him away from his goal he distrusts.  Ishmael/Melville associates monomania and "madness" in general with disorder, with savagery, with the infernal imagery of the try-pots. As someone who has experienced OCD personally,  an obsession of that caliber does get to be a drag after a while.

 I feel like the song I've written is a reflection of how the crew of the Pequod tries to cope with the instability of its commander.  From both the text of the novel and the song I've written, Ahab's obsession takes its toll on the crew as well.  In writing this I was also inspired by the Divine Comedy music video "Fail," which laments the draining academics of BYU.  

So, anyone wanna help me make a real music video?

 

What's in a Tail?

I thought I would do the honors and be the first to talk about Moby Dick. So I may or may not have told you all, I took Dr. Burton's Shakespeare class last winter, and at the end of the semester he told me he was teaching this class. I bought a copy of Moby Dick and slowly read through it over the course of the summer in my free time...well, perhaps not that slowly.  It's hard to put down a book that you're reading late at night and munching toast to.
I will admit that I am as annoyed about the whaling chapters as some people get. However, what keeps me going is considering the value of the text. If one wants to get into the minds of 19th-century whaling culture and discover what the whaling industry was like, Moby Dick is probably the best text available. Herman Melville already went and did the research for us. This is what it was actually LIKE to be on a whaling ship hunting spermaceti.
This kind of reminds me of our digital culture today. While Melville uses words, modern culture uses pictures, captions, videos, skype and live-feed, music, and social networking forums to allows us a glimpse into any sort of world we want. The difference is that while a book can completely immerse you, the internet will only immerse you as deep as you want to go. The diverse options we have of what to do with our digital resources means that, as we said on Wednesday, we can either explore many things at once on a surface level or any one subject we want to an infinite depth. We can be either Ishmael, conversant on many subjects, or Ahab, the man obsessed.