about
My favorite visual gag on "The Flintstones" was when Fred would assert something WAY wrong and be suddenly corrected, and he'd shrink in size until he was teeny in his stone chair and squeak, "Sorry, Wilma..."
That gag was my starting point with "Shrunk," which follows the lines of Cole Porter's "You're the Top." My purpose, unlike Cole's, was self-hate—insecurity—rather than flattery in love.
Sometimes in love, one person improves him or herself—grows—while the other...uh...doesn't. And by comparison I—uh, that person—will tend to feel shrunken by comparison.
It's probably the killer riff and pace that make this song so popular with my audience, and not the text, though. Especially live. I don't even know how I came up with the guitar on this one. Light years beyond my ability, trust me.
Attention great guitar players, who just read that and thought, "THAT riff is killer/beyond his abilities...?": you have just grown and I have shrunk. Again.
lyrics
"Shrunk"
[vonHummer]
Looking up at you now, I feel so alone: I have shrunk and you have grown…How your voice thunders down like from Heaven’s Throne: I have shrunk and you have grown…
You are expanding, you have evolved, I’m in remission, so uninvolved, I should have noticed, I should have known: I have shrunk, and you have grown…
Should I bring you down with a sling and stone: I have shrunk and you have grown…Can’t express my love in this chipmunk tone: I have shrunk and you have grown…
You’re multiplying, I’m in subtraction, abbreviated, I’m a contraction, You’re up and coming, I’m down and outgoing: I have shrunk, and you have grown…
I feel sad, but it’s really not as bad as I thought, being one of the Little People, I get to know where the rainbow ends in a gold-filled pot,
Put me down, you giant, you, I’ll talk, I’ll talk, might as well tell you where the treasure is,(It’s farther than these Lilliputian legs can walk…)
Living in your shadow, it’s like an eclipse, sonic booms and earthquakes, don’t shake those hips…Asteroids of extinction, the crumbs from your scone! I have shrunk and you have grown…
You’ve gone titanic, I’m but a shrimp, you’re monumental, I’m a ten cent stamp, that darling tattoo like a billboard has blown: I have shrunk and you have grown...
credits
license