Stephen Colbert on the Ben Folds Five song "The Best Imitation of Myself"

  • COLBERT: Yeah, he was on my show two nights ago, and I really like Ben Folds. Every night, actually, on my show, just for fun at one of the commercial breaks, we usually play his song "Steven's Last Night in Town." And we'll sometimes play - I love the song "Philosophy" by Ben Folds. And I mean, I like a lot of his stuff. But there's one particular song that is - that I just love called "The Best Imitation of Myself." And there's sort of an obvious resonance for me because I do an imitation of myself professionally. And the lyrics go: You know, I feel like a quote out of context, withholding the rest so I can be for you who you want to see. I got the gesture and sound, got the timing down. It's uncanny. Yeah, you'd think it was me. Do you think I should take a class to lose my Southern accent? Did I make me up or make the face till it stuck? I do the best imitation of myself. And when I first heard the song, it was just a few years ago actually, somehow this song had escaped my notice, I just thought he had written it for me. But then when I listened to it more, I though it's just a beautiful expression on how we are toward each other as people. We don't think that we are sufficient for each other, that no one wants to know the real me or the whole me. I just want to give you the part of me that I think you expect to see from me and almost as if that little part of me is more than the whole of me, 'cause I don't want to give you any of the poison, I only want to give you the meat of me. Do you know what I mean?
  • GROSS: Yes.
  • COLBERT: And this constant slight changing of our mask, or as Eliot says in "Prufrock," time to prepare a face for the faces that we meet. I just hadn't heard in a song in the same way as this one. And I just, I couldn't love this song more.

Source: NPR

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