Technically, it wasn’t even a date. A guy had asked my friend Rosy to dinner — this was a few years ago — and she had agreed, as long as he understood that it “definitely wasn’t a date.” “Of course,” he emailed, “I’m so there too.” Rosy explains what happened next:

During dinner he proceeds to get really drunk and a little belligerent. Afterwards, we go for a walk and he says “We should date! Why don’t we date?!” “Sure,” I say, “As long as you know I would date other guys, you know, nothing exclusive or anything.” He flips out. His eyes glaze over and he says over and over: “I can’t believe you just said that.” I finally heed the red flags (why does it always take so long?), run to my car completely freaked out, and drive home.

Late that night, the guy drunk-dials Rosy several times, leaving her progressively crazier voicemails. Even though she never saw him again, the experience kept bothering her, and she hung on to the voicemails. Eventually, in an effort to exorcise the weirdness she felt and turn the whole thing on its head, she took a very unusual step — she decided to ask her friends to help her turn the voicemails into dance songs. Several people helped out (including me), and the result (not to mention the whole project) is so unusual that I thought I’d share it here. (It’s also all on Rosy’s website.)

First things first: here’s one of the voicemails from Mr. X that started it all:
Drunk-dial voicemail 1

And here are the songs Rosy’s friends created using bits of the voicemail.

I did this one, mashing up & cutting together music from my iTunes library:

DMT made a booty-shakin’ dance song, and even cut together a music video for it. Interestingly, they also reference 50s-era instructional films about dating, though in the video rather than the song itself. Well played!

Roman Kovalik is a film and TV composer in LA, and it shows: his take is dark and cinematic-sounding.

Shawn Feeney spun the voicemails into a thickly-woven sonic canvas, so much so that they’re hardly intelligible. The Blade Runner approach!

What do you think? Ever had a date so bad you wanted your friends to make songs about it so you could dance away the pain? (Me neither, but I thought it was a cool idea.)